he accuracy and reliability of data, information, and research published on websites – whether they are hosted by federal, state and local government, corporations, academe, scholarly groups, news organizations, advocacy and professional associations, as well as individual, is subject to continuous review and evaluation to establish its accuracy, reliability and usefulness specific to the areas that pertain to your specific work. The requirements of many faceted work product, deliverables, assignments, publications, reports and specialized expert services demand that we in essence continually, rapidly, and effectively boil the vast ocean of knowledge that is in a continuous state of change. 2018 highlighted additional obstacles to researchers with the advancement of efforts to brand legitimate reporting, news and research resources as “fake” in an effort to marginalize, ring fence and demean publishers, journalists and researchers whose writing and work diverged from that of a prevailing force in American politics. As expert researchers, the clarion call of “fake news” heightened these challenges to our work, but also gave us opportunities to improve and expand critical skills and knowledge across a comprehensive range of sources. Our work is often time sensitive and yet it requires that we continuously practice effective examination of a broad and deep spectrum of information – to establish actionable facts. This work includes cross-checking data and routinely performing due diligence reviews on sources and publications which we cite and from which we source our operational work product. More than ever perhaps the Internet is a dynamic ecosystem – sites often change URLs, the subject matter, focus and perspective may be impacted for reasons that are financial, political or even personal, and ownership of sites may change, resulting in dramatic changes to the quality and reliability of a site’s content. With increasing frequency, sites go offline or merge/are subsumed into other sites, with little or no notification to users, even if they are subscription based. New sites and services pop up, and researchers are challenged to make quick determinations as to their value. However, we have just so many hours in our work day to identify and efficiently use tools and resources that support our ability to accurately meet the requirements of our customers, users, patrons, and readers. This guide remains focused on the requirements of multi-disciplinary subject matter researchers, a group of which I am a dedicated and a long standing member. This latest version of the guide includes dozens of updated links, deletion of sites that no longer exist , as well as numerous new, value added content. For 22 years, LLRX has not changed its URL and the webzine remains an independent, non-affiliated, one woman owned and edited publication. Please refer to this guide as a reliable resource on which you may depend and to which you will often refer as you engage in research, knowledge discovery, managing knowledge services, as well as an reliable resource for teaching and training programs. As always, I appreciate your suggestions to include additional sites and sources in this guide. Thank you – and may your research always shine light on the facts, regardless of any efforts to bury, obscure and diminish them. This will be added to Reference Resources Subject Tracer™. This will be added to World Wide Web Reference Subject Tracer™. This will be added to Business Intelligence Resources Subject Tracer™. This will be added to Entrepreneurial Resources Subject Tracer™. This will be added to the tools section of Research Resources Subject Tracer™.
