The European Journalism Centre (EJC) has launched The Verification Handbook, a resource for journalists, providing guidelines for sifting through information on social media during a crisis.

“In a crisis situation, social networks are overloaded with situational updates, calls for relief, reports of new developments and rescue information,”  the EJC said in releasing the book online. “The handbook prescribes best practice advice on how to verify and use this information provided by the crowd, as well as actionable advice to facilitate disaster preparedness in newsrooms.”

For the moment, the handbook is available online only, but print, ePub and free PDF versions will be available “soon,” the EJC said.