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210 RESEARCH ON THEINTERNETto status quo or mainstream cultural values and “truths.”
These alternatives can be viewed as fertile terrain for re-
searchers, or they can be viewed as erroneous informa-
tion. It is often a personal and subjective call. The prudent
method of dealing with alternative information is to un-
earth and attempt to understand the bias or point of view
projecting it and compare and contrast it with authorized
findings and beliefs.Help
There are numerous organizations that track spurious
information on the Internet. The Computer Incident
Advisory Capability, a site hosted by the U.S. federal
government, is a good place to start, and there are
numerous other organizations such as Snopes that are
excellent in tracking Internet frauds and hoaxes.CONCLUSION
The condition of global research has evolved significantly
due to the Internet. There is no area of research that has
gone untouched. Researchers can write, edit, and share
papers and reports electronically; read and interact with
journals, books, other texts, and media online; examine
the holdings of millions of libraries, research facilities,
museums, and political entities; perform relatively sophis-
ticated searches on billions of documents; and do all of
this, and much more, in real time and from nearly any-
where in the world.
Furthermore, the Internet has made available to re-
searchers information that is impossible to obtain else-
where, material that is accessible without extensive (or
any) cost, and material that represents a wider variety
of opinion and cultural concern than is obtainable via
any other medium. While writing this chapter, the en-
tire Abraham Lincoln Papers’ collection was uploaded
at the Library of Congress’ American Memory site, fully
searchable. And this is just one of millions of compara-
ble items that became available during these few short
months.
While it is tempting to wax on about future develop-
ments for researchers, it is futile to deal in particulars. At
least some of the copyright issues which currently block
large amounts of information from appearing on the In-
ternet will be settled; bandwidth will increase enabling
new formats and faster transmission; interactivity and in-
telligent interfaces will further evolve; search engines will
become “smarter;” information will become standardized
and easier to catalog; and the overall amount of informa-
tion, particularly from developing nations, will continue
to increase at astronomical rates. On the other hand,
barring any massive global governmental interventions,
information on the Internet will remain relatively uncen-
sored and extremely varied, making it crucial for users to
become literate in evaluating content.GLOSSARY
Internet directories Hyperlinked lists of Internet sites
organized by subject, typically selected by an informa-
tion professional, and often annotated and evaluated.
Rings Internet sites that are related by subject and
linked together. Rings often require membership, and
self-select for quality.
Internet search engines Software that identifies Web
content, organizes and indexes it, searches it, and dis-
plays results based on relevance.
Invisible Web Those files on the Internet that are not
easily detected by search engines.CROSS REFERENCES
SeeDigital Libraries; Internet Literacy; Library Manage-
ment; Web Search Fundamentals; Web Search Technology.REFERENCES
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