Topic 1    Introduction

This section should help you to:

• identify where information comes from;
• understand who disseminates information;
• consider how information is disseminated;
• understand how information is categorised;
• explore where to find different types of information.

In this section we aim to help you to understand where information comes from, how it is generated and how it reaches you as a consumer. We will talk about the ‘journey’ that information makes from generation to consumption using a model called the ‘information supply chain’.

Once you are aware of where information comes from, you will begin to be aware of the need to organise and categorise information into different types. Therefore, we will describe some different ways of organising and categorising information. Finally we will explain where to find these different types of information.

If you do all the activities in this section, you might need to allow between one hour thirty minutes and two hours to complete it. Most of the activities only require you to think about the issues raised and, whereas in later sections you will need a pen and paper to complete a section, making notes in Section Two is optional; reading and reflecting is more important here.