ASSESSING THE VALUE OF ONLINE MEDICAL RESOURCES

Barbara Slattery, Librarian, Royal Melbourne Hospital Health Sciences Library incorporating the Victorian Mental Health Library, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Grattan Street, Parkville, Victoria.

Abstract
Given the nature of the World Wide Web as a largely unregulated and constantly evolving information source, it is often difficult to find sites that offer useful, comprehensive and reliable resources. There are basic principles for assessing the authenticity of websites, although their intrinsic value can only be assessed by each user in the context of their specific needs and expectations. Since everyone uses the Web for different reasons, and it is not a resource whose existence is based on an identified public need for specific kinds of information, what one finds will depend largely on the assumptions others are making when they decide to create a page. The most successful web resources are those which have managed to answer the questions already being asked by people, whether on the Internet or elsewhere. The beauty of the WWW, however, is that it is constantly evolving and expanding to fulfil and create new needs, thereby fuelling and feeding itself and its users.

Citation
Slattery B. Assessing the value of online medical resources. ASUM Bulletin 2001.3:12-14.