Universities are both producers and users of new and historical knowledge. Quality information resources are the foundation of teaching, learning, research and innovation, which is why libraries have been at the heart of universities for centuries and will continue to be so, despite the existence of the World Wide Web.
Where can authoritative information be accessed and trusted right away that, if useful, would be the best and most appropriate for your academic purposes? This question is especially significant for information resources, which are not online. For example, much West Indian/Caribbean (especially, if used in its broadest sense, includes materials from countries using the four language groups (English, Spanish, French and Dutch) information and data. Librarians and information professionals, have throughout history, been responsible for curating, evaluating, organising and providing access to trustworthy information resources and knowledge.
Many Early Career Researchers, in general, would have grown up with using the internet, especially the World Wide Web. When entering academia, many may have learnt how to use the Web for academic purposes.
Finding information on Google and Google Scholar is easy and ubiquitous. But research has shown that many persons do not know exactly what they are searching, why the results come up in the way that they do, the authoritativeness some of the results, when to stop searching, how to evaluate eResources and, certainly, what else is available that may better suit their needs, but of which they are unaware.
Often, Librarians and subject specialists familiar with the literature and information sources may be able to assist when there is information overload or when it appears that there is no information on a topic, especially regional information, as well as how to evaluate information resources.
Universities, recognising the need for quality deep web information not available on the indexed web, pay a great deal of money (millions of dollars) for access to such resources. This authoritative (often peer-reviewed) type of material is required to support teaching, learning, research and innovation by the university community to ensure that output is at the highest level of international standards and to achieve accreditation, especially in the professional disciplines.
Information Resources
Most universities have an information portal with highly sophisticated search capabilities as well as the ability to search individual databases. These full-text resources are usually IP-authenticated and, thus, available on- and off-Campus.
For example, at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus (STA), these paid full-text resources are available via the Library’s website using UWIlinC, the portal to the resources of all UWI Campuses, as well as the A-Z Databases list.
As at August 2022, UWI STA, one campus of a regional university, has access to about half a million print books at several libraries on Campus, over 260 databases, over 110,000 eJournal titles, nearly 68,000 eBooks as well as a multitude of print journals, photographs, maps, multimedia and microfilms, including three local newspapers from inception, and newspaper clippings on relevant local research topics.
Benchmarking Your Research
Benchmarking your research is an early step in the research process. Theses and dissertations are certainly a great source of not only of subject content (often with cutting-edge perspectives), but methodologies, methods, study instruments, references, and referrals (authors, supervisors) to experts in your research area. See this research guide page on theses for an international listing of thesis and dissertation databases.
Many universities now have institutional repositories of not only documents but also data repositories. At the UWI, there is UWISpace, UWI’s institutional repository, and UWI Theses which may provide full-text resources from the five UWI campuses not encountered on the Web. Full-text documents are accessible via the repository for the UWI Community on Campus and abstracts for the international community, but if full-text is required, persons may get in touch with the West Indiana division at the Alma Jordan Library.
UWIScholar, a repository of scholarly activity of UWI staff, may provide insight regarding persons who are specialist in their field or can act as a referral as to where regional information may be available, especially grey literature and conference papers/information, whether it is Caribbean science, social sciences, arts or humanities topics.
Regional (Caribbean) Resources
Many regional (Caribbean/West Indian) resources and, if I dare say, works native to developing countries, are not available online on a large scale. Thus, many academic libraries (and sometimes national and/or public libraries, which are the only types of libraries in some countries) will have heritage collections to house their print materials. Many developing countries are in the process of digitising materials, but this is not as widespread as desired nor proceeding at an accelerated pace.
However, the following list of online resources may be useful to researchers in or interested in the Caribbean. It is by no means a comprehensive list but links to mostly Caribbean materials in English:
- Caribbean Research Databases LibGuide
- UWI STA Special Collections
- The Caribbean Film Database
- Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
- Caribbean Search in EBSCOhost
- CERIS (Caribbean Educational Resources Information Service)
- Caribbean Menu on the School of Education (SoE) Library’s website and the Alma Jordan Library (AJL) website;
- Digital Library of Trinidad and Tobago
- The AJL hosts 15 Caribbean journals.
- Five UWI education journals on the SoE Library’s website: Caribbean menu.
- Some useful online Caribbean and teaching resources can be found on SoE Library LibGuide: Useful links, some Caribbean-related.
- UWI STA Campus Libraries
Dr Shamin Renwick (MLIS, PhD, FCLIP), a Librarian of over 36 years, is keenly interested in information literacy in academia and in the workplace; information environment experiences; and issues in agriculture, specifically, food security. She is currently Senior Librarian II at the School of Education Library, The UWI, St Augustine.
