Consciousness of disinformation

[Robert J Tiess]

I should also say we also have a declaration/disclaimer comparable
to those posted thus far in our public internet access policy.  Here
is a quote from that policy:
                                     
	The library cannot control resources on the internet.
	Some sites accessible via the internet may contain
	material that is inaccurate, defamatory, illegal or
	potentially offensive to some people....

Patrons sign and get a copy of this policy prior to accessing the
Internet.  I also maintain a copy of this policy on our website
(See  http://www.thrall.org/admin.htm  for the complete policy).

As schools are beginning to compel students to this new
electronic medium (www), librarians and technicians, such as
myself, become secondary educators for a primary
educational subject, namely Information Evaluation.  It would
be wonderful if we could assume the formal educators and
parents imparted the necessary critical skills to these young
researchers, but from the standpoint of an institution
providing Internet access, we are obligated to take steps
to foster an awareness and promote critical assessment
of data.  Even at the risk of being misinterpreted as negative
or alarmist, my colleagues and I believe it is generally beneficial
to bring consciousness to this issue, and patrons are grateful.

Thank you, by the way, for your apt responses to my initial query.
As someone on this list said, it is an extension of policy toward
printed materials; and yet, there is more to it, because a book
is finite after it is printed--finite in that it's in a fixed form, text
printed on a certain stock, covered, numbered, shelved, and
monitored.  Certainly multiple editions of the volume may
ensue, but with the Internet, an electronic book's pages may
actually be modified, intentionally or not, or reformatted--at any
time--in such a way as to offset page numerations, footnotes,
links to other documents, something unassuming researchers
would do well to be made to recognize as a potential problem.

This creates obvious bibliographical dilemmas; problems not
easily solved and perhaps not answerable until the Internet's
next phase of physical addressing comes into play.  So, as long
as the medium remains dynamic, as it must be to accommodate
growth and perpetuate interest, there is potential for dislocated
information, which can lead to mis- or disinformation....  Even with
the relatively newly proposed permanent URLs, permanent e-mail
addresses (now available), it will be quite a long time before we
can depend on information being where last we encountered it.
Some websites will be better at this than others.  Linkage here
becomes an issue too:  Does one link to a site that's not a
university, a long-established organization, or a commercial
information service provider like OCLC?  Or does one take
controlled "chances" and link to excellent yet (what appears to be)
personally-assembled data, such as collection of resources placed
online by a college student?  One issue leads to another, which
bifurcates.

Further compounding the issue is user-customization of Internet
Resources--something as simple as resizing fonts, using a text
browser instead of a graphical browser, or changing the screen
colors alters the original physical appearance of information.
Insignificant as it seems, the changes can become cumulative,
factoring in operating systems, video cards, monitor resolution,
printer DPI (for hard copies), cpu speed:  this all alters the way we
receive information on a physical level.  I'm inclined to believe this
influences to some minor, imperceptible but ever so slightly
significant degree our reaction to any given piece of information.
But this goes beyond mis-/disinformation, and begins to approach
the heart--or face--of the information we gather daily from the web.

					Robert

Library Technician, Webmaster
Middletown Thrall Library
http://www.thrall.org