SNHU Research Essentials  Tags: books research informationliteracy interlibraryloan  

Library research develops skills that are part of the broader skill set called "information literacy," which consists of the ability to do four key tasks:

1. Understand when you need information
2. Identify and locate that information effectively and efficiently
3. Evaluate information critically
4. Use informaiton legally and ethically.

Our other guides will continue to help foster and build on your information literacy skills.

We are constantly bombarded with information; it is everywhere, and consists of everything you take in by your senses.

But for the purposes of university study, and for these pages, information can be defined as any documentation that can be used to create knowledge. 

Although there is a lot of good information that can be found online through the free Internet, information traditionally has been produced and published in formats that the library collects, organizes, and preserves, such as books, periodical information (magazines, journals, newspapers), and reference material (encyclopedias, dictionaries). Much of the information found in these formats is still not freely available online, although much of it can be accessed through library subscription databases that are accessed online via a web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.

This guide is designed to introduce you to many of these information formats to help you identify and locate information you may need for your research.  Please use the comment boxes to help us tailor this guide to make it more useful for you.  

Many people are confused about what "research" really is--it's not a report of what ideas are "out there" on a certain topic; instead, it's a process by which information is used to answer a specific question. 

See the short video linked below for a quick overview of the difference:

http://www.acts.twu.ca/Library/ResearchModel.swf

When events happen and get reported, an "information cycle" begins. News sources pick up the story immediately and report the facts as they happen. Over the following weeks, magazines report the incidents more completely and begin to analyze their consequences. In the months and years that follow, books are written that further provide context to the events.  This is why different information formats are important to research: each format provides different aspects or perspectives on the events as and after they occur.

See the following short video for a brief overview of the cycle of information:

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/instruction/infocycle/infocycle.html

The cycle of scholarly publishing is similar to the information cycle with some significant differences: ideas are based in research questions, information may be sent to peers for review before publication (peer-review), and the journals in which the information is published are subscribed to by libraries rather than by individuals. 

See the following short video for a brief overview of the scholarly information cycle:

http://www.capella.edu/interactivemedia/informationLiteracy/interactive/scholarlyPublishingInteractive/scholarlyPublishing_outerWrapper.asp

Note how the two cycles can overlap and inform different groups of people at different levels. News events get analyzed and researched by scholars, and scholarly research gets reported to a wider audience in the magazines and newspapers.

Content for this video was created by Hyun-Duck Chung, script and narration; Susan Baker, graphics and animation; Chris Hill, music. More information on this video can be found here: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/pr/credits.htmlCreated at NCSU Libraries http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/.

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