The Internet is many college students’ favorite way of accessing information, and it’s true that some information—including authoritative sources identical to those your library provides—can be found online, sometimes for free. However, information in library databases comes from identifiable and professionally edited sources; because no one is responsible for regulating information on the web, you need to take special care to find out which information online is reliable and which is not.

Authoritative sources online

You can find many authoritative and credible sources online. You can browse collections in virtual libraries, for example, or collections housed in government sites such as the Library of Congress, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Census Bureau. For current national news, consult online versions of reputable newspapers such as the New York Times or the Washington Post or sites for news services such as C-SPAN. Google Scholar can help you limit searches to scholarly works.

Some scholarly journals (such as those from Berkeley Electronic Press) and general-interest magazines (including Slate and Salon) are published only online, and many popular print publications make at least some of their contents available free on their websites.

If articles you need are not available online or are available only for a fee, use a library to get access before deciding that you don’t need those sources. Libraries subscribe to many important scholarly and professional resources that you won’t find on the open Internet.

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Internet searches

Research using a search tool such as Google usually begins with a keyword search. Choose keywords carefully to improve the odds of finding what you’re looking for. For example, if you’re searching for information on legal issues regarding the Internet and enter Internet and law as keywords in a Google search, you will get over three million possible sources. You may find what you need on the first page of results, but if not, narrow your topic and choose new keywords that lead to more specific sources. Look for a search engine’s search tips or advanced search options for help with refining and limiting a keyword search.

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Bookmarking tools

Today’s powerful bookmarking tools can help you browse, sort, and track resources online. Social bookmarking sites such as Pinterest allow users to tag and save information and share it with others. Users whose tagged sites you like and trust can become part of your network so that you can follow their sites of interest. With some tools, if you find a helpful site, you can check to see how others have tagged it and quickly browse similar tags to find related information. You can sort and group information according to your tags.

Web browsers can also help you bookmark and return to online resources. However, unlike the bookmarking tools in a web browser, which are tied to one machine, you can use social bookmarking tools wherever you have an Internet connection.

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