Evaluating Websites

The internet is a wonderful resource but we do need to take great care in evaluating its wealth of information. Different criteria have to be taken into account when searching for information on web sites as oppose to information in hard copy materials which have been through a publisher and the editing process. Anybody can post information on the internet, they may not be experts in their field or even sane, they could be a convicted killer in a maximum security unit somewhere. The areas we need to consider include:
-audience who is this intended for, am I or the customer within the target audience group, would I want to be?
-purpose what is the purpose of this website
-authority and this one can be a minefield. It can be very difficult to ascertain the credentials of people posting on the internet. Google Scholar can help with this.
-current scope or coverage Occasionally you do come across websites that have been abandoned, no longer maintained or up to date. But on the other hand the internet can have the advantage over hard copy material for currency, as long as it is from a reputable source.
-usability, ease of navigation The best quality information can be let down by a cumbersome website that is difficult to navigate around and this can put people off using it.
-advertisements This can be a real issue with children and young adults. You don't want websites that contain huge amounts of inappropriate advertisements or links tempting children to "win" things at certain websites or "free" this and that. These sites can open them up to viruses and they can end up clicking links to porn which isn't always picked up by virus protection and firewalls.

I went back to some of the websites that I looked at during Module 6 - Topic 1 and tried to evaluate the websites using the above criteria. I think just making readers aware of the above criteria can get them thinking, I still come across people who believe that the internet is controlled in some way and that the information posted on websites is all checked and verified.

encompass I felt was a very good site when I looked at it again taking the above into account. It is produced by The British Council and clearly states its aims and who produces it. The information is current and it seemed very well maintained. Easy to use and I enjoyed the site so felt that made me one of their target audience.

The Guardian book club, again produced by a reputable organisation, one of the largest broadsheets in the UK. I felt that the likes of The Guardian and The British Council wouldn't attach their names to a site unless they felt it was well done and showed them in a good light. The Guardian book club has a Professor of English at University College in London associated with it, which was credible enough for me.

the book lovers club was a current site, well maitained. It clearly states that it will delete any spammer or promoter that posts on the site. This sort of maintenance is crucial to produce a quality website.

When helping children and young people I always feel it is useful to teach them a bit about the web addresses, it suprises me how many do not know how to tell a bit about a site by its web address, ie edu for educational sites, govt for governmental sites, uk/nz/au for the relevant countries. This can be useful in selecting sites. I always try to encourage people to look at several sites as a way of verifying information. Young people often don't want to do this but it really does pay to make sure you can find the same facts and figures elsewhere before quoting them.

There are as many different websites as people, we can find websites to suit everyone. A lot of it is personal taste and familiarity, but the above criteria should always be taken into account. The internet is a different resource so we need to utilise a different set of criteria to get the best quality information we can from it. As it changes and evolves we have to do the same to keep up with the beast we have created!

An Authors' Perspective

The new technologies of forums, podcasts, social networking sites where authors have a presence and chat groups do make our favourite authors more accessible than ever before. Readers have always enjoyed gathering in Book Groups to chat about books, their inspiration and possible interpretations but now the authors themselves can get involved in these discussions. It is always nice to hear it from the horses mouth! Publishers now expect authors to publicise their work through regular book tours and interviews as well as online forums.

It is very useful to be aware of the websites listed and be able to refer customers to them. I did find a lot of the sites had an American bias and also tended towards the critically acclaimed works rather than the more populist. I enjoy crime writers and I have to admit that there were very few crime writers on the podcasts. I do enjoy the NZ Crimespace site for keeping up to date with new crime and mystery fiction.

The childrens and young adults sites were very good, I actually think childrens sites are leading the way here. Reading Rockets and Adolescent Literacy are wonderful sites to motivate children to read. Fantastic Fiction under LibraryThing is great for the fantasy genre. I also have a soft spot for Pulse from Christchurch Libraries as they gave me my first Library job in NZ. Childrens and Young Adult authors seem to make more effort to do entertaining podcasts and interviews. The movie-like advertisement that Brian Falkner made for his young adult book the Tomorrow Code is a case in point. It is nice to see how many sites are focussing on NZ authors. They aren't exhaustive but then none of the sites are. I am sure that these sites will only improve and become more widely used as people get more familiar with them.

File Converters

I found this a very useful exercise because I have felt rather ignorant when it comes to uploading files as it is not something I do myself very often. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised at how straightforward and easy Google.docs was to use. I found it easy to upload the document but there were quite a few formatting changes when it opened in Google.docs. The blue heading was in a different font, the picture completely disappeared so there may be a problem opening graphics in Google.docs. The table lost its' lines although the bullet points and bold were still there. I actually tried the exercise a second time to really help me remember how to upload a file and the second time around the picture did appear when I opened the document in Google.docs, so perhaps it is very inconsistent. Always useful to be able to warn patrons that there may be formatting errors to correct, I do feel more confident about guiding them through the process now.

Readers and Booklovers

There are certainly a vast array of online book and authors sites, really we have no excuses when it comes to finding new and exciting books for our customers. However in my experience some of these sites are better than others. It can depend largely on what you read and how current the item is. I chose to enter the last book I read that I really enjoyed, "Dead Like You" by Peter James one of my favourite authors, granted this is brand spanking new but I was quite surprised that several of the websites I tried didn't seem to list it at all despite it being at number one in the Sunday Times Book List for several weeks. The Book Seer did list it and referred me to a list of the types of books that I would have expected to be guided towards, namely Mark Billingham and Peter Robinson. They also list a lot of Peter James previous crime books which seemed a bit unnecessary, even I could work out that if I enjoyed one book by him then chances are I'd enjoy his other detective books!
What Should I Read Next? proved very entertaining. It didn't recognise "Dead Like You" but asked me whether I meant "Looking Good Dead" one of Peter James earlier works, that was fine so I entered that for book suggestions which produced a truly hilarious list that they believe a fan of Peter James detective books would enjoy, top of this list was :
-Roger Mason. Finance for non-financial managers in a week.
followed by the equally edge of your seat page turner:
-Eating for England. (no author given)
-Tim Irwin. Run with the bulls without getting trampled: the qualities you need to stay out of harms way and thrive at work.
They were the top three, the expected likes of Mark Billingham and other recognisable crime writers came way down the list and only after Wilbur Smith??? So I was less than impressed with this site. In future for mystery and crime fiction I think I'll be sticking to the Crimespace blog.
It is very useful to be aware of these sites when doing Readers Advisory work and use them alongside the likes of Who Writes Like... in hard copy, as well as the Kim Hill recommendations, Oprah Book Club etc.

Specialist Search Engines

Blinkx was a revelation to me, I hadn't come across this before and I really like the way it lists all the news channels, you can limit your search to specific news channels that you like or alternatively see the UK/US/Australian take on certain issues. If you were looking for a specific news item that you knew was aired on say ITN then it would be much easier to find it using blinkx I feel rather than ploughing through all the hits you'd get on You Tube. They would probably both have the same clips but perhaps I would go to blinkx in future if I had missed a news item rather than wading through some of the utter junk you get on You Tube. I do enjoy You Tube for music videos but sometimes despair at some of the home movies people post on it, the desperation of doing absolutely anything just for that 30 seconds of fame is very sad.

I searched the Google Book Search for Tutankhamun, to find information on the new DNA tests carried out on mummies to determine their relation to him. So I searched for Tutankhamun, DNA and family tree. The magazine search on Google Book Search was interesting, it was remarkably easy to get distracted from the task at hand reading through them all! However if I knew there was a particular Time article perhaps there would be easier ways to go straight to Time. I do like that you can sort the magazine articles by date. If a customer knew there was an article and couldn't remember the magazine it was in it may be useful.

Google Web Searches

This Module has been fascinating and will come in very useful when helping people with reference enquiries. I already like the Wonder Wheel option on Google. I find children especially relate to this visual way of illustrating search results, it can help them to think of related subjects and seems to be more familiar to them than somebody of my generation because they do a lot of mind mapping at school nowadays. People with dyslexia would also respond well to results shown this way.

I decided to search for the term Web 2.0 and got some unexpected results. I was fully expecting Google to produce the largest number of hits as I have found that to be the case with other searches, but not with this search, in fact Google only provided 409,000,000 hits while Yahoo gave the most at 2,640,000,000. The Wonder Wheel option let me down when I entered Web 2.0, although I tried numerous times it didn't produce a wheel. To check the option was working I entered eresources and it immediately produced a Wonder Wheel for that term, but Web 2.0 seemed to confuse it. The Timeline option was interesting, to see how the Web 2.0 term appeared for the first time around 1980 and peaked in hits in 2008. Timeline is very useful for people following trends in certain subjects or fields.

In retrospect my search subject didn't and wouldn't produce many images, but searching for other subjects I really enjoyed seeing the images. Yahoo seemed to produce fantastic images. I have previously always turned to Google Images for pictures but now would try Yahoo as well.
I like the clear press releases shown on Exalead and would recommend this for people wanting information on recent news stories and big events. Bing was clear and easy to follow and use, but I don't know that I would use it, it didn't seem to offer anything different or fresh.

If somebody is studying a subject in detail then it would be worth recommending all of the search engines we have looked at, if we introduce as many people as possible to the resources available then the chances are they will find a search engine they like and can use easily. A lot of it comes down to personal choice.

Google Alert!

I set up a Google Alert on Egyptology and monitored the results over a week. I did get a lot of information but didn't want to narrow the search terms because I was picking up articles and images that were interesting. You do have the ability to manage your alerts.
I would certainly recommend using Google Alert to anybody doing serious research in a subject, students and people with particular interests in specific fields. It is a very easy way to keep in touch with developments in your chosen field.