The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources

The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources

The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor’s Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources

Robert I. BerkmanInformation Today, Medford, NJ, 2004

Although the internet is now one of the most well-known information sources, a major problem for all users is the quality of information available. For the serious searcher the web provides access to worldwide information that is easier to obtain, with rapid access, lower costs and even free sources. The author aims to empower the researcher to go beyond scooping up facts to examine what is found with skepticism, since web page design is not conducive to good research.

The main reason for the book is to help business researchers to know when and how to go beyond search engines. By business research the author means company information sources, market research reports, statistical data, news and media sources, online discussion groups and weblogs. The work’s scope is limited to what is found on the free web and accessible by anyone. This includes the invisible web but does not cover fee-based databases that have migrated to the web.

The content of the book is in an easy-to-use format, providing internet users with useful tools and techniques, and acts as a refresher for experienced information professionals. It begins by identifying and reviewing seven major types of hard copy business information sources available in libraries; others are recommendations for pre-screened web sites, invisible web sources, blogs and pre-filtered information resources.

Berkman offers useful advice on search engines and recommends Google because of its reliability, but he also offers guidance on how to find good sites, with basic strategies for precision web searching. The bigger problem, though, is what to do about new sites of unknown reliability. He provides tips for analysing the truthfulness of a source and introduces the use of proactive evaluation strategies to determine whether a source is credible. How to assess web sites and read URLs are also included.

The web is a versatile resource for obtaining company information, corporate home pages, market research reports, company directories, etc. so the emphasis in this book is how to retrieve data that was considered impossible just a few year ago. The main issue concerns credibility and how to assess adequately the quality of data from various sources. This also applies to statistical data, polls and surveys, and the quality of business statistics on the web. Government sources are recommended as being authoritative and of high quality, but polls and surveys require an extra level of skepticism. Online news and web discussion groups are shown to have limitations, so examples of these sites and ways of evaluating their contents are provided.

Researchers need to build their own knowledge of a topic in order to spot bad data, apply critical thinking, intuition and trust. Berkman offers guidance in developing these qualities, and in particular the art of asking the right questions. Building your own list of trusted sources is highly recommended, and the last chapter provides a compilation of filtered and screened business sites organized by category that have proved to be reliable and useful sources for business research purposes.

This is a very useful guidebook, but the contents are weighted towards users in North America.

A version of this review was originally published in Online Information Review, Volume 30 Number 3, 2006.