Back to: Where the Information Resides

Where can you find information? Lots of places have lots of information:

Libraries.

SIDEBAR: What is a library?

There are old libraries

Vatican Library, Rome (1448)

There are new libraries.

Alexandria Library (2000)

Libraries are not the only places to get information. Governments and international organizations put out massive amounts of information.

Learned societies and foundations put out information.

"Think tanks" and special organizations also put out information.

So, how do you find the information from all of these places? Are there differences in the quality of information?

Producers of Information
One way to look at this is by figuring out the types of producers of information.
These types can be broken into groups based on objectivity and ethical standards.

Publications can be:

• Objective and follow ethical standards
• Biased and follow ethical standards
• Biased and do not follow ethical standards

Objective/Ethical Standards
The first group we shall discuss are those publications that are objective (or at least semi-objective) and that follow ethical standards. These are normally the scholarly journals. All publications have some bias (no one is completely objective), but at least they strive to present different sides of a topic. There is also some kind of peer-review process or fact checking performed by an editorial staff.

Newspapers and news magazines (such as Newsweek and Time) cannot wait around for a peer-review process and must put out their information quickly. They rely on experienced copy editors to ensure that their articles are high-quality.

These types of materials are normally the most trusted ones.

Biased Publications/Ethical Standards
Another type of producer is where there is a definite bias in the publication, but it still follows some type of ethical standards. These are primarily materials published by think tanks and similar institutions. Here is an example: Windfall Profits of Doom by Ben Lieberman. When you examine this item, you will discover that it is "Webmemo #918" published by "The Heritage Foundation." When we find out about this foundation on their page "About Us," we discover that it is a conservative "think tank." See also: Think tank publications

Another example is: Don't Despair About the Supreme Court by Howard Zinn. We discover that this was published in the November 2005 issue of "The Progressive." When we examine their "About Us" page, we discover that it is a liberal magazine.

Just because a publication openly proclaims its biases does not mean that its information is wrong, but it will very probably be slanted toward a particular viewpoint. These publications still follow ethical standards and are not supposed to publish untruths, but they may omit facts that do not fit into their argument.

One should not expect a conservative publication to publish a pro-liberal article or that a liberal publication will publish a pro-conservative article. Compared to the scholarly journals, scholarly journals have a more objective purpose, but it doesn't mean that one article is more true than another.

Biased Publications/No Ethical Standards
The other type of producer is one that has definite biases and follows no ethical standards. We can immediately think of blogs that present one person's opinions. Here is an example. It is difficult to expect objectivity, full fact-checking, and consistent ethical standards in someone's personal opinion. This does not mean that the person is right or wrong, but it is important to realize that the information provided concerns the person's opinion, but any facts provided should not be accepted at face value and should always be checked.

Strange Publications
One of the strange resources is Wikipedia, which is difficult to classify. People like to think of it as a reliable source, but right under its name is:

Anyone can edit the articles! That should make us stop and think before we rely too heavily on the information there! Wikipedia is not a bad resource to begin with, so long as you understand that you don't know who last edited the article. Therefore, it should never be cited as a reference source.

Another, more traditional way to think about the producers of information is by their purpose. This list is adapted from bookjobs.com.

• Newspapers (Based on very fast publishing)
• Trade publishers (Popular books for the general public)
• Professional and scholarly publishing (publications for the scholarly community)
  
• Educational publishers (Textbooks)
  
• University presses (Scholarly publications, but more popular materials as well)
  
• Independent publishers (All types of materials)
  
• Vanity publishers/Self-publishing (The author pays for publication. Personal web sites could be included here)

How Information is Made
Information normally comes from specific sources. One way to look at this is to consider the time factor. "Quick information" is substantively different from information that has had time to be checked, reconsidered, and perhaps corrected. The following table shows how this works, and how this is reflected in the type of source.

Time	Source(s)	Type of Information	Authors	Audience	Location	Type of Source (See Below for Explanations)
Day of the Event	Radio, TV, www; diaries	General: who, what, where (normally not why)	Journalists, people	General public	WWW search tools; anywhere	Primary Source
Days Later	Newspapers, Radio, TV, www	Varies: some articles include statistics, photographs, editorial opinions	Journalists	General public	www search tools, newspapers, current periodicals	Primary Source
Weeks Later	Popular and mass media news magazines (e.g. Time, Newsweek)	Still in reporting stage (who, what, where, and why); general, editorial and opinions; statistics; photographs; usually no bibliography is available at this stage	Journalists (usually not specialists in the field)	General public to knowledgeable layperson	www search tools, newspapers, current periodicals, periodical databases	Secondary Source
Months Later	Trade magazines and scholarly journals (after enough time for peer review)	Research results; detailed and theoretical discussion; bibliography available at this stage	Specialists and scholars in the field	Scholars/specialists, students	Periodical indexes and databases	Secondary Source
One Year to Years Later	Scholarly journals, books, conference proceedings Reference sources such as encyclopedias, handbooks, etc.	In-depth coverage of a topic; edited compilations of scholarly articles relating to the topic; bibliography available General overview giving factual information; bibliography usually available	Specialists and scholar in the field	General public to specialists Anyone; scholars; students; laypeople	Library catalogs; Periodical indexes and databases Reference collection	Secondary Source Reference Source

One tricky point in considering time, is that this table deals with when the information is created, not when it is published. For example, in 2007 many personal materials of Anne Frank were made available to scholars. Even though they were made available 62 years after her death, they are still considered to be primary sources.

There are three types of information, based on how it was created: primary and secondary sources, plus a special type of secondary source, called a reference work.

Primary Source

A work containing firsthand information or original data on a topic. Primary sources include original manuscripts, periodical articles reporting original research or thought, diaries, memoirs, letters, journals, photographs, drawings, posters, film footage, sheet music, songs, interviews, government documents, public records, eyewitness accounts, newspaper clippings, etc.

Secondary Source

Any published or unpublished work that is one step removed from the primary source, usually describing, summarizing, analyzing, evaluating, derived from the primary source materials. Examples: a review, critical analysis, second-person account, or biographical or historical study.

Reference Work

A work designed to be consulted when authoritative information is needed, rather than read cover to cover. Examples of reference works include almanacs, atlases, bibliographies, biographical sources, catalogs, concordances, dictionaries, directories, discographies and filmographies, encyclopedias, glossaries, handbooks, indexes, manuals, research guides, union lists, yearbooks, etc.,

There are some other strange things with the Internet:
Blogs