This document provides guidance on effectively accessing information through appropriate methods, tools, and search strategies. It discusses selecting the best sources and evaluating reliability. Methods of accessing information include reading, listening, viewing, and using intuition. Tools include searching databases, the internet, and libraries. The document cautions that online information requires critical assessment for accuracy and advises using scholarly sources over general searches. It defines primary, secondary, and tertiary sources to identify different types of information.

1. Accessing Information

2. Accessing information
You will be able to find needed information effectively and efficiently
by:
A. Selecting appropriate methods and
tools for accessing information
B. Using effective search strategies
C. Obtaining relevant information

3. The information literate person uses CRITICAL THINKING to negotiate
information overload and asks:
1. What information do I need to
address this problem? (recognising)
2. Where can I get it? (accessing)
3. How do I know if this information is
reliable or adequate? (evaluating)

4. Methods and tools
◦Reading
◦Listening
◦Viewing
◦Feeling
(It IS kind of that simple…..)

5. Reading information
Consider:
◦Your expectations.. ‘the answer is out there’
◦Potential for passive reception - no thought
◦Very quick decisions about usefulness (30
seconds)
◦Your professional integrity: don’t go for what is
“good enough” but what is “best”
◦You DO judge a book by its cover!
Tools include:
◦ Accessing historical documents
◦ Skim and scan skills
◦Organising written material

6. Listening to information
◦ Personal communications (including wisdom)
◦ Interviews
◦ Surveys
◦ Group work
◦ Panels/ submissions
◦ Debates
Tools include:
◦ Keeping a diary-record
◦ Shorthand/notes
◦ Using technology
◦ Checking back with speaker

7. Viewing information
◦ Don’t be seduced by design
◦ Don’t just believe plausible
presentation/official looking sites
◦ Remember visual images can be
manipulated
◦ A picture tells a thousand words?
◦ YouTube also posts conferences, academic
content
◦ Participant observation
◦ Photos/ images
◦ TV/Documentaries
◦ Cultural practices

8. Feeling for information
◦ Intuition
◦ Sense
◦ Experience
◦ Hunches
Tools include:
◦ Describing in a written form
◦ Checking out with others/ask
◦ Test it out
◦ Reflection
◦ Journaling
◦ Referencing: Auto biographical

9. Retrieving information
Primary visits : experts, community resources, professional associations
How to retrieve: surveys, letters, phone calls , email, collating
Practical details: document delivery, flights to National library, archives,
time

10. Problems of the WWW
◦ How to narrow searches
◦ Which search engines may be best for a topic
◦ Sorting out disinformation and misinformation;
judging opinion, rumour, propaganda
◦ Understanding the status of collaboratively
generated and edited information
◦ Being selective/ often distracted by interesting
stuff
◦ Not having skills to skim and scan for meaning
◦ Not able to synthesize/reword to making sense
◦ Unintentional plagiarism

11. Tools for searching (for now!)
◦ EBSCOHost
◦ EBL
◦ Google Scholar
◦ Library Catalogue
◦ Search engines
◦ Agency materials
◦ Liaison librarian

12. Wikipedia is fine……. BUT….
◦ It is an ENCYCLOPEDIA
◦ Anyone can write or edit an article
◦ All authors are anonymous
◦ Must be used and evaluated critically
◦ “Google” is much the same

13. EBSCOHost
EBSCOHOST and ProQuest are academic databases. They include:
◦Journals
◦Newspaper articles
◦Book reviews
◦Images/videos (limited)

14. Words
◦ Keywords: Miscarriage, impact, teenager
◦ Synonyms for teenager: young person, adolescent, youth, young adult
◦ Related terms: still born, still birth, impact on partner, clinical
spontaneous abortion, first trimester miscarriage, grief

15. Concepts
Concept
1
Concept
2
Concept
3
smoking
depressio
n
females
or
or or
tobacco
mood women
or
and or and or
cigarette
s
mental
health
gender
or
or or
nicotine
mental
illness

16. Primary, secondary, tertiary sources
1) Primary: Original, not condensed or evaluated e.g. some journal articles,
conference papers, reports
E.g.: An assessment tool for grief counselling
devised by Kate Darby
2) Secondary: Evaluates, integrates and describes primary sources e.g.
newspapers, books, journals
E.g.: Evaluating the effectiveness of the Darby grief
assessment tool by Jones (2007)
3) Tertiary: List, index and organise primary and secondary sources e.g. text
books, bibliographies
E.g.: Grief counselling resources: Darby grief
assessment tool