To speak about the explosion of the web over the last half a decade is somewhat of a cliché at this point – but it's true! The Canadian Encyclopaedia 2000 notes that "the Internet is growing at a staggering speed: the number of attached networks more than doubles each year and the number of attached computers and volume of traffic appear to double every 3 months. "This online revolution has impacted many segments of Canada – and high on that list must be libraries.

I would hazard a guess that at York we receive at least three to five new electronic sources (academic metasites, online journals or databases) monthly which we have to acquaint ourselves with so that we can help our users. Luckily, basic principles about database frameworks and website design remain similar across different products making them easier to learn. Another spin off from the Web that we've seen at the Reference Desk in the last few years is the change in students' research habits. The fact that school systems and teachers have been active participants on the Web – there is a plethora of online learning resources available and, in 1998, 89% of students had used the Internet in their classrooms (Library of Congress, Internet Use in Schools, 1999) – means that students are accustomed to using the Internet for research.

While graduate students and faculty are familiar with searching a database (or even, shock horror, a print index!), noting down citations and retrieving journals from the stacks, undergraduate students want articles to be available at a click of their mouse. It's true that the number of scholarly journals and full text databases we subscribe to is increasing monthly. At this juncture in time though, the vast majority of scholarly work in the social sciences and humanities is in printed format, not online. Nonetheless, there are some marvellous academic resources on the Web. For instance, a scholarly search engine like Hippias will pull up high quality philosophy websites that have been through the peer review process. And a key journal like the Canadian Journal of Economics is now available online for York users. So it's not surprising that a significant number of professors allow their students to use Internet sources in their assignments.

Equally true of course is that the Web is also chock–a–block full of dated, biased and incorrect material. In the print world there are clear, and limited, avenues to seeking publication and publishers have a long history. Students don't have to be told that there is a difference between using a Harlequin Romance or a University of Toronto press title as a source, this is general knowledge. In contrast, the technology and know how needed to construct a web page is very accessible. And on the Internet looks are deceiving; there are no easy visual clues to show which sites are reputable and which are not.

The bottom line is that if students are going to use the Web as a research tool we have to teach them (and ourselves!) to critically evaluate a source before they decide to use it. To that end when we teach Internet workshops at the Library there are a few basic tips we give and you may want to share them with your own students.

• If you decide to use a site, print off at least the first page and file it – sites come and go daily and this way you'll have proof it existed even if it disappears.
• One safe way to play is to use academic sites only – check an address to see if it contains the name of a university (or research institute) or the extension.edu.
• Check at the bottom of the page for the author or sponsoring organization's name and credentials – or see if there is an "About Us" link where this information is provided.
• Check at the bottom of the page for the date to see when the site was last updated.
• Get into the habit of evaluating a website based on such issues as authority, currency, accuracy, content and bias. For a more in depth checklist of questions students can ask, check out our Evaluating the Internet link at http://info.library.yorku.ca/internet/evaluate.htm.
• As a filter control use websites that have been chosen by librarians or subject specialists. At York, you can check out our Internet pathfinders at http://info.library.yorku.ca/internet/by_subject.htm, or alternatively you can use NetFirst, a database of websites that have been chosen and catalogued with Library of Congress subject headings.
• Not all search engines are created equal so use ones that have consistently high ratings, we suggest Google, or for searching with Ands/Ors try Northern Light's Power Search.
• For information on how to properly cite electronic sources see our Online Citation Guides at http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html.