Page 93 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Information and Literature Survey in Social Sciences

Notes The secondary services from the West cover very small percentage of literature produced in the
developing countries. The insufficient coverage of literature from developing countries is not conducive
to the real growth of social science world wide. The coverage of literature about developing nations in
foreign data basis is not only very marginal but whatever is there is usually outdated The vice-versa
also true. However the coverage of literature about theory, research method in foreign data basis is
of more interest to the users in developing nations.
It is a great misfortune, that the users of information services in the developing countries are not aware
of their own indigenous services, though they are well informed about foreign secondary services
which most of them cannot afford to subscribe. Accessing foreign secondary services available in
machine readable format is beyond the reach not only of average social scientist, but even for the major
libraries of research institutions in developing countries, So much so, that the price fixed for Unesco
Bibliographies in social sciences is on a very high side for users and libraries located in Asia, Africa,
Latin America and Eastern Europe. Accessibility to such resources may be brought with in the easy
reach of a user. The access to such data basis may be made available through a few se organisations
in developing nations,
Critical evaluation of the information you find is essential to conducting quality research. With so much
information available, in different formats, from so many different sources, each piece of information
that you select must be carefully reviewed to ensure the quality, authority, perspective, and balance
that best support your research.

Key Consideration Involved in Evaluation of Secondary Sources of
Information

The following are the key consideration that should be followed while using the secondary sources
of information:
1. Data Pertinence
The first consideration in evaluation is to examine the pertinence of the available secondary data to
the research problem under study. The following questions should be considered.
• What are the definitions and classifications employed? Are they consistent?
• What are the measurements of variables used? What is the degree to which they conform to
the requirements of our research?
• What is the coverage of the secondary data in terms of topic and time? Does this coverage
fit the needs of our research?
On the basis of above consideration, the pertinence of the secondary data to the research on hand
should be determined, as a researcher who is imaginative and flexible may be able to redefine his
research problem so as to make use of otherwise unusable available data.
2. Data Quality
If the researcher is convinced about the available secondary data for his needs, the next step is to
examine the quality of the data. The quality of data refers to their accuracy, reliability and completeness.
The assurance and reliability of the available secondary data depends on the organization which
collected them and the purpose for which they were collected. What is the authority and prestige of
the organization? Is it well recognized? Is it noted for reliability? It is capable of collecting reliable
data? Does it use trained and well qualified investigators? The answers to these questions determine
the degree of confidence we can have in the data and their accuracy. It is important to go to the
original source of the secondary data rather than to use an immediate source which has quoted from

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