The library has a rich set of resources that provide background information. You can include them in your class CourseSite as supplementary resources. These include reference resources such as encyclopedias and dictionaries. Other formats such as ebooks and review articles, covered elsewhere in this guide, also serve this purpose. These background resources help students wade through technical jargon and provde context for more specific research and reading they do in a class. 

FOR FURTHER HELP

• For help identifying background information resources, look for a library guide related to your research. We have them for many subjects. You can explore them here.
• Send an email to a subject librarian! 

This video tutorial  for undergraduate use discusses the role of "background information" in library research. This was done for a summer institute about data. It makes some points that are relevant to any subject area.