American Economic Association

The website for the American Economic Association (AEA) is a great resource for all levels of individuals involved in Economics. The portion to which Dr. Roland directed us, What is Economics? provides a clear and concise definition of Economics.  A quick Google search indicated that 414 other sites have linked to the url, http://www.aeaweb.org/.  There were 51 related sites that include such as the Royal Economics Society, The Econometric Society (An International Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics, and the Social Science Research Network, to name a few.  

I like the simplified explanations for students (and for other novices like me) as well as the faceted searching on the side designed to help undergraduate and graduate students.  This section was designed for students but the entire site could be used as a resource for students or faculty.   Finding Facts was interesting as it acts as a Libguide for the Economics student. It did not provide solid information to ascertain the authority of the resources accessed.  As we read in the Information Overload article for this week, accuracy may not be the first priority for Economics students.  Developing Skills provides valuable information for the Economics student but still stops short of helping students determine the authority and accuracy of the material researched.  

As I reviewed these resources for Economics students, I could not help but think back to the Political Science Research Competency Guidelines and the ALA Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education in general.  It seems that as a librarian working with those in the Economics field,  that it would be helpful to utilize the standards and develop a strategy for developing information literacy.  As the speed of retrieval was listed as slightly more important than subject accuracy in the study by  Melgoza, Mennel, and Gyezly (2002, 35), it is important to address Standard Two and help students develop the proper research strategy to produce the most efficient, accurate results.  Table II in the Melgoza, Mennel and Gyezly article indicates that accuracy was ranked lower than Accessibility, Convenience and Ease of use (2002, 35). It is important to understand the information needs and seeking habits of the field. However, with accuracy ranked so low, a librarian working with faculty, graduate and undergraduate students in this field, a concerted effort to address ALA Information Literacy Competency Standard 3.2 to help information seekers recognize the reliability, accuracy, authority, bias, etc.  

I think that there is a great deal of room for improvement in the information seeking habits of those within the field of Economics and librarians could work with faculty and students to better develop information literacy skills.