Even when you come up with a list of sources, you have to find the physical books and flip through their indices to make sure they have the information you need. Then, you need to check your sources. You can't write a decent paper using biased, inaccurate, or otherwise faulty information. You need to make sure that the sources that you have found are genuine and factual. An encyclopedia is one resource that you can use to quickly check certain items in your source materials.
Good research is a process.
To properly utilize the enormous benefits of the WWW, you will have to learn this process. Become familiar with search engines to collect document listings. But, just like in the library, you have to dig. As a tool for locating sources, there is nothing better.