Library research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Library research - Essay Example WoK provides bibliographic content as well as online tools for accessing, analyzing and managing information resources, wherein the search function can be perform simultaneously within multiple databases (ISI Web of Knowledge, 2005) Nexis is a Website which offers resources from thousands of news organizations, intelligence reports in the company and industry levels, reference and bibliographic sources, and intellectual property and public records, as well as legislations and regulations filings and legal resources. Information provided by Nexis apply to the accounting, academic, corporate, government, law enforcement, legal and risk management context (LexisNexis UK, 2011). Full text databases are those in which the complete content of the source of information is provided. For example, if the source is a dissertation, the complete material is provided and not just the abstract or a condensed version of the dissertation (Gravetter and Forzano, 2009). A citation database is a repository of bibliographic citations which enables a researcher to locate and get details about a certain work such as author, title, publisher, date, volume number, issue number, and number of pages (Benedictine University, 2006). The factors to be considered when evaluating a Web source include: (1) authoritativeness and authenticity, which may be verified from the URL or the source of information and the credentials of the person / organization publishing the content; (2) reliability of information, where editorial and referencing procedures and the basis of the information are the best validators; (3) content, which may be compared from similar Web pages for notable omissions and other indicators of accuracy of information (Ely and Scott, 2007; Donyai, 2009). As a rule of thumb, if a statement or a fact is not common knowledge, or if the researcher is unsure, it is best to cite the source of the information (Marquez, 2011).