8.1 Web Resources - an Introduction

What is an Internet resource? An Internet resource can be a number of things: a source of information, entertainment, a means of communication, or a place to do business among other things. On the world-wide-web (a part of the Internet), you can read articles in newspapers, check out the course listings for universities and colleges, research U.S. Supreme Court decisions, check the weather in any part of the world or the latest products offered by many companies, view museum collections, find stock prices, locate recipes, hear music excerpts, download software programs, watch clips from videos, and find a million other things - all for free.

So what is the difference between a search engine and one of the library's databases mentioned earlier? Let's extend our shopping analogy.

Most stores have some criteria for the quality of goods that they sell. This would be the same for the library's databases. Each database has a standard of quality that must be met by resources before they are included in it. However, in a flea market, there are a jumble of things: good quality items, unusual or entertaining items and just plain junk...somewhat like what one would get from a search engine. It's up to you, the researcher, to pick and choose from amongst the array.

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