Is it Online?

The wide, wide world of information is not completely online...yet.

In the previous modules, you learned a lot about what kind of information is available, how to come up with a topic, and how to search for various types of information on that topic using a wide variety of tools. The ultimate goal is to actually find the information that you think will best inform you about your topic.

Since the internet and full-text databases came along, people started to think that searching for information was equal to finding it because when you search web pages, 99% of the time you are taken directly to the web page and will have found it.

This, however, is not always the case for every resource you use, especially databases and catalogs which often simply tell you that an item exists, but don't actually deliver that item to you online.

So the next time you are searching for information, keep in mind that while the amount of material available electronically is growing every day, everything is not online.

This Module will tell you how to find things online as well as what to do when you don't find the information you searched for online.