Information Literacy
What is information literacy? Information literacy is the ability
to accurately locate, assess, and utilize information. You may already demonstrate
some characteristics of information literacy: for example, you probably know
how to use a search engine to find web pages. However, information literacy
goes beyond these basics: you may know how to pull up 10,000 web sites on
Google (9,950 of which are useless), but do you know how to find 10 really
good and useful web sites? Information literacy can mean the difference between
an okay final paper and a great final paper. So, you can see why it would
be important for you to be information literate.
What does information literacy have to do with web pages? Anyone
can create a web page on any old topic (you've probably seen tons of sites
dedicated to your favorite band or actor), with lots of links. Chances are,
a lot of those links are old, or don't work, or link to stuff that isn't really
useful or even accurate. Information literacy can give you the tools and techniques
needed to find and assess web sites to include in your web page.
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Getting Started
First off, decide what topic you want to focus your web site.
Your topic must be approved by the librarians. Some suggestions include:
| Homophobia |
Napster and copyright |
Kids, stalkers, and the Internet |
| Fertility drugs and multiple births |
The FBI |
Terrorism |
| Sex and violence in the media |
School vouchers |
Eating disorders |
Next, click here to open a
web page template (note that the template will open in a new browser window).
Now, save this template to your A: drive by going to File on the tool
bar and select the option "Save As." Give the document a name that
makes sense to you, and then click the "Save" button.
Now that you have a template to work off of, open up Netscape
Composer. To open the page you saved, go to File on the tool bar and
select "Open." Next, select the name of the file you want to open,
and click the button. There! You can now add images, change the background,
and add links as you please.
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Images
In your Web
Page Toolbox, you will find dozens of images you can add to your web page.
To save the image to your A: drive, right-click on the image and select the
option "Save Image As." Then, you can return to Netscape Composer and insert
the image into your web page. To do this, go to Insert on the tool
bar and choose "Image." Then find the desired image on your A: drive and select
it. When you place your mouse on the image and click on it, it will become
outlined.
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Background
From the Web
Page Toolbox, you can choose any background you want for the page.
Backgrounds can be found at our toolbox site, and saved the same way you save
other images. You should save them to your A: drive so that you can experiment
with them. To insert a background, click on Format on your tool
bar. Choose "Page Colors and Properties." At the section labeled
"Background Image," insert the file name by clicking the "Choose File" button.
Then, open your A: drive and select the background to apply.
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Text and Links
Adding text to your web page is simple; just type in what you
want to say. You can format your text as you would in a word processor, using
either the menu buttons or the options under the menu heading Format.
Another handy feature is the the Spelling button on the menu bar.
To insert a link to a web site, click the Link button on the menu bar;
then, type in the text that will be your hyperlink. Next, type or paste in
the URL of the desired web site. Finally, click the OK button. See
the section below on finding links to include.
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Looking for Links and Favorite Sites
It is now time for you to scour the Internet and find links
to include in your page. You can find links using two different tools:
subject directories and search engines. Subject directories include web sites
that a librarian or other professional has already evaluated and organized.
This way, you can be assured of the quality of the web site (of course, you
should evaluate the site, just in case). Search engines, like Alta Vista,
do not evaluate the sites they list. It is up to you to not only know how
to use a search engine effectively, but also determine whether a sites is
useful to you.
Effective Searching
Anyone can come up with a bunch of hits via a search engine;
do you know how to search more effectively, so that the sites you find are
actually useful? Here are some hints: