When you use printed or online library resources, you can usually judge the reliability of the material you find by determining that it is peer-reviewed, or is written by a known author. After you have used library material, you can find it again using the library's catalogue; it probably will not disappear. Internet sources are not so reliable. They can be spurious, anonymous, and tend to vanish into dead links without warning. How then can you use the information that you find on the 'Net , while confident about its reliability and your chances of finding the same resource online at a later date?
There are several checklists for evaluating the information that you find on the Internet. Jan Alexander and Marsha Tate of Widener University Libraries have developed a series of checklists for assessing different kinds of web sites, including advocacy, business, news, informational and personal web pages. (http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/webeval.htm)
If you find material on an Internet site, try to apply the criteria listed in Alexander and Tate. If you can answer the questions to your satisfaction, then the web material you are examining is probably worth including in your research. If you are left with doubts, then consider finding information elsewhere, perhaps in books or journal articles. If you have used the Internet because you were having trouble using a journal indexing database, ask for help from the Library, using LIVE (http://www.lib.unb.ca/disted/LIVE/) or by 'phoning us. Remember that many of their criteria should be applied to whatever material you are considering in your research, whether it is found online or in printed form.