Welcome to the spring semester from the Hawai‘i Pacific University Libraries. The new year brings new opportunities to enhance academic life and career performance. One of the most important skills for both is information literacy, the ability to find, select and evaluate information sources.

Building information literacy skills begins with broadening your search strategies and evaluating publication sources. Where can you find information for your research and presentations? Then comes evaluation: How accurate, up-to-date, and complete is the information?

Start your research with a look at the tab for HPU Libraries on Campus Pipeline. It will link you to an assortment of tools that will guide you to sources appropriate for academic or professional research.

Many students rely on various Internet search engines such as Google for convenient, simple and quick searches. These searches may lead to a number of different sources, but they may not always satisfy in-depth research needs. For more credible sources that will add to the quality of your research, you may want to learn more effective search strategies from librarians and subject experts.

HPU librarians are available by phone, e-mail and in-person at the Atherton and Meader Libraries to assist you so that you can maximize your time. If you learn to systematize your research, you will have more time for processing, theorizing and writing.

For your next class project, challenge yourself to look beyond the popular Internet search engines and seek out new information sources. You may be surprised at the range of resources available at the HPU Libraries and through Campus Pipeline. Use them to enrich your study and to add depth to your work. Your information literacy skills – the ability to find, select, and evaluate information sources – will serve you throughout your studies