Evaluating the credibility of web resources

[Clay Johnson]

I would say that information in Books have far more validity behind them,
than web pages unconditionally, wouldn't you? I mean, anyone can write a
web page and post it stating "Monica Lewinsky is a Man," but I don't think
we can get any books, periodicals, or what not, that can include that
without some validation, with the exception of the National Enquirer.
Books, periodicals, etc... have a small validity factor built in, because
of the amount it takes to get published.

FYI- I am not a librarian, by any means, but a college student running a
research service on the Net called HumanSearch (http://www.humansearch.com
). This issue, is, first hand, a big one. Basicly, people ask our service
questions, and we go out and try to find the answer. But frequently, we
don't know whether the answer we find is accurate, because who says it is
valid or not?

At 07:23 AM 2/3/98 -0800, David King wrote:
>>Thats an interesting question. How CAN one test the validity of information
>>on the Net? Does anyone know of any Information Validation services out
>>there, either online OR offline? I'd love to hear the answer to this one
too.
>
>I wouldn't think any "information validation" services would be needed.
>How do you choose the books your library purchases? Do you use an
>Information Validation service for that?
>
>IMHO, you should test net info the same way you'd test ANY info.
>
>
>______________________________
>David King
>Electronic Services Librarian
>University of Southern Mississippi
>d.king at usm.edu
>http://ocean.st.usm.edu/~dlking/
>