1. Identifying Information Sources UDSM Library

2. How Information is Generated By government. The government generates information through:  Procedures  Judicial  Legislative  Treaties  Reports etc. By academic institutions  Faculties and departments (reports, procedures etc),  academic research in departments/faculties  students theses and dissertations etc.

3. How Information is Generated Private sectors  Commercial newspapers, magazine and book publishers  the film and television industry  corporate laboratories, business research etc.

4. Why should you know about how information is generated?: Knowing how information is generated will determine where to go to locate and access information Knowing how information is generated will determine how you would evaluate information and sources

5. Primary & Secondary Sources Primary sources  Person  Interview  E-Mail contact  Event  Discussion  Debate  Community Meeting  Survey  Artefact  Observation of object (animate and inanimate) etc. Secondary sources  Reference Materials  Books  CD Rom  Encyclopaedias  Journals  Magazines  Newspapers  Video Tapes  TV  www etc

6. Web-Based Information landscapes There are various landscapes of information in the world. These include: Search Engines  Scirus  Google  Yahoo etc Information gateways (Subject Portals)  TZ Online  Pinakes etc

7. Web-Based Information landscapes Web Applications  Blogs  YouTube  Wikipedia  Delicious etc Online Databases  Indexes (LISA, MEDLINE, ERIC etc.)  Full Text (Emerald, Ebsco Host, Agora, Blackwell Publishing etc.)

8. Search Engines Three main types:  keyword searching tools, e.g. Google, AltaVista, All the Web  web directories/portals, e.g. Lycos, Yahoo Yahoo for example, organise information by subject categories  meta-search/multi-search engines, e.g. Dogpile  Most have huge databases of web resources, created by automated robots  But there are differences between most search engines - experience can help in choosing which to use

9. Search Engines You can use Search Engines for:  Finding lots of information  Getting a feel for what is out there  Doing a fairly specific search  Searching for organisations, people, pictures etc  Doing quick and extensive searches

10. Search Engines Search engines do the following:  While searching, some search engines can suggest for spellings  Search engines find websites by trying to match the words contained in the search box  Most search engines list sites found by ranking their relevance to the search

11. Comparisons of Sources Those with high authority  Books  Journals  Magazines  Newspapers  Reports Those with low authority  www  E-mail  Newsgroups  Other informal sources (such as individuals etc)

12. Summary In this session, you have been able to:  understand how information is generated  understand the difference between primary and secondary sources of information  examine various web resources  identify sources with higher and lower authority