CHAPTER 2INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
RALPH STUART
Office of Environmental Safety, Keene State College, 229 Main St., Keene, NH, 03435
JAMES STEWART
Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Landmark Center, 401 Park Dr., Boston, MA, 02215
and
ROBERT HERRICK
Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA, 02215
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Since 2000, the accelerating development of and access to electronic information resources has made information management an increasingly important part of all professions. The evolution of the Internet has increased the importance of both paper and electronic information in the daily life of professionals and organizations alike. This is certainly true for occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals, for whom gathering, organizing, prioritizing, and sharing data and information are core functions. It is difficult to imagine managing the variety and amount of information that a twenty‐first‐century OSH professional works uses without strong computer skills.
At the same time, information available on the Internet is of variable quality and not necessarily peer‐reviewed. For this reason, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both online and more traditional sources (books and journals) in information used by the OSH professional. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of professional ...