Library:
Searching the Internet
Web Guides - A Web guide is different from a search engine. Web guides are compiled by humans; therefore, the sites are usually organized better and for these guides below the sites listed are usually very reliable.
Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/
The Librarian's Index was started and is still maintained by a librarian, Carole Leita. This is a great site. This site is a collection of some of the best and most reliable sites on the Internet. You can either browse by category or use the search box just like any search engine; however, only the sites listed in this index are retrieved. After completing a search pay careful attention to the categories listed at the bottom of the entry - these can give you clues as to what terms to use. All entries are annotated.
Yahoo Directory http://www.yahoo.com/
Probably one of the more extensive human reviewed ‘directory’ sites. It combines search engine capability (using Google) with its own extensive categories and site annotations. A great place to start a search if you have a popular or general topic.
Argus Clearinghouse http://www.clearinghouse.net/
The Argus Clearinghouse is a non-profit site with subject guides to the Web (which unfortunately are no longer maintained). Though not completely up-to-date, the links may still be helpful to you. The site is categorized along the lines of an academic institution. Finding the right category can be challenging (the old dilemma - is History a Humanity or Social Science?). If it is, use the Search/Browse link for a search box and a more in-depth table of contents. Each site listed has a "Guide Information" page specifying the URL, rating criteria and scores, dates of the original and latest evaluations, and the person responsible for the evaluation.
Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu/
This site is maintained by several University of California libraries. This group of databases has over 40,000 resources. Use the Search Page to search all of the databases simultaneously.
Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/
Nonprofit site maintained by the University of Michigan School of Information. Options to search or browse categories, including large collections of reference materials, full-text books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
Internet Scout Project http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
This site is maintained by the University of Wisconsin. The Scout Project publishes the Scout Report, a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators. All sites have a lengthy annotation and the dates they were first and last reviewed.
AllExperts.com http://www.allexperts.com/
Use this site for locating a hard-to-find resource or finding an answer to a tough question. Pick a category, locate a viable expert within that category and then submit your question to get an e-mail response.
Evaluating Web Sites - When using the Web (or any information source) for research it is important to make sure that the information is reliable. Use the following sites to help you do this.
Four Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites http://www.mildred-elley.edu/evaluating_web_sites.htm
This site was produced by the Mildred Elley Library. It is a one page sheet that offers the minimum of evaluation criteria.
Criteria for Assessing the Quality of Health Information on the Internet - Policy Paper http://hitiweb.mitretek.org/docs/policy.html
The Health Summit Working Group published this article. This article deals with the special problems of health information on the Internet. A must read before you start surfing for medical sites.
Critically Analyzing Information Sources http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/skill26.htm
From the Librarian's Index to the Internet: ""Learning how to determine the relevance and authority of a given resource for your research is one of the core skills of the research process." This guide from the Cornell University Libraries is designed to help develop this skill."
Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/index.html
This site is maintained by Genie Tyburski who is a legal researcher for a law firm in Philadelphia. (This law firm owns the copyright.) This site is packed with information. There is original content and practice tests. There is also a form that allows you to request GREAT free articles, either faxed or mailed to you! Legal researchers may also find this site to be particularly helpful.
Evaluating Internet Sites 101 http://library.albany.edu/usered/webeval/index.html
This site was written by Carol Anne Germain and Laura Horn from the University at Albany. The site has a series of slides with real examples of the types of questions you will face when evaluating resources. The more you use this site the better it gets.
The Internet Detective http://www.netskills.ac.uk/TonicNG/cgi/sesame?detective
This site is maintained by the Desire Project, a major international project aiming to build large scale information networks for the research community. You must register but it's free. This is a tutorial with questions that you can answer - but beware they're tough. You can navigate either with the arrows at the bottom of the page or the links on the left. A good thing about this site is that it helps you to decode URLs.
Web Site Evaluation Quizzes Do you know the basics for evaluating information on Web sites? Click here to take our short quizzes.
Search Engines
- A search engine is comprised of three different parts, a
spider or 'bot that crawls along the Web "looking" for
pages; a database that arranges what the spider finds; and an
interface with the searcher - this last part is the only part
you see. It is important to realize that you are not
searching the Web, you are searching the search engine's database
of the Web; therefore, all information may not be accurate and
you will never be able to search the whole Web. For more
complete results it is better to search at least three search
engines. See article
on search engine overlap.
Quick list of things
to be aware of when searching the Internet. One important rule that
is left out is to consult a librarian if you cannot find the information
you need. Google
http://www.google.com/ For brief help in
interpreting results from Google click Looking at the Results Carefully. This is a
relatively new search engine. They boast over 1.4 billion
pages and counting; however this is only the pages they have
identified. They have not indexed all the pages.
This search engine has relevance rankings similar to Google so
the sites returned are usually pretty good. You can click
on the categories at the top of the results page to focus in on
your search. Apparently WiseNut plans on growing because
their database can handle up to 1 trillion sites. Fast is
definitely quick with the return. The advanced
search is very nice. There are also links to MP3 and
Multimedia search engines. One thing to remember is that this
search engine has an "Offensive content reduction"
control and the default is ON. A good
thing about this site is that is gives you categories at the
beginning of the search results so that you can narrow down the
list to more manageable numbers if you want. The advanced
search is not very good, except for the fact that you can
limit the results to include images, video, MP3, etc. Alta Vista is
one of the original search engines. The search
assistant is not a help page but a guided
search. The advanced
search is only okay. The best thing about it is
that you can limit the results to one return per site.
This is one of the more customizable engines but it is not as
intuitive as the rest.
Specialty Search Engines - Specialty search engines work similarly to the general search engines listed above, but they search for information within a particular topic only.
Search Engine Watch listing http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/specialty.html
Maintained by the Search Engine Watch site, this page lists numerous discipline specific search engines, such as those for health and medicine, computer science, travel, finance, law, etc.
Meta Search Engines - A meta-search engine (also known as a mega-search engine) is an engine that searches several different single engines at the same time. While it sounds more efficient to use these it generally is not because of technical reasons. While I would never rely on only a meta-search engine I usually use one in addition to the regular engines.
Ask Jeeves http://www.askjeeves.com/
This is a nice search engine because it allows you to type in questions without having to think of the keywords that encompass the information you need. The first results are in the form of questions with pull down menus. Use these pull down menus to help focus on exactly what you want. If none of the questions is close, then move on to the usual result list. View the Web page by clicking on the word "Ask."
ixQuick http://ixquick.com/
You can choose different media to search with this meta-search engine. You can also do a complex searching such as Boolean (AND, OR & NOT) and limit searches to titles. They have a great help page. A list of which search engines it searches appears after you have searched.
Mamma http://www.mamma.com/
Mamma, billed as "the Mother of All Search Engines," searches 8 databases. You can limit to the Web (default), images, MP3, or others. In the power search you can choose other limits and filters.
Metacrawler http://www.metacrawler.com/
One of the original meta-search engines, this is still a good one to use. It searches 13 different databases (as of 5/15/01). Can limit to images or audio among others. In the power search you can specify the databases searched, how the results are ranked, and how many returns from each search engine.
Vivisimo http://vivisimo.com/
This site not only conglomerates results from several major search engines into one results list, but it also organizes pages into related categories for easy access and a logical breakdown of larger result sets
Finding Images on the Web http://www.bu.edu/library/training/webimages.htm
From the Librarian's Index to the Internet: "A tutorial on the legal use of copyrighted images, image searching, downloading, and use. Includes a great collection of links to art, science, map, advertisement, photograph, and other image collections and image search engines. Created by art and art history bibliographer Ruth S. Thomas at the Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University.
Alta Vista Image Search http://www.altavista.com/image/default/
A basic search engine interface. You can choose to search for buttons to help zest up your Web page.
Clip Art Searcher http://www.webplaces.com/search/
This page has several different search engines to choose from, currently (12/2/02)Google, Anzwers, Hotbot, Lycos, and two one-click searches - Yahoo & Euroseek. Read the search tips for the first three. For the last two, click on the appropriate category - for instance if searching for clip art click on "Clip Art" on either Yahoo or Euroseek.
Google Image Search http://www.google.com
Click on the Images tab to restrict your search to images. When you click on an image you want to see you do not get a larger version of the image; you get a funky frame set up. By clicking on the top picture you get a larger image.
Mediscan (Medical Image Database) http://www.mediscan.co.uk
Help
with Searching - When looking for information on the Web it
is important to remember a few things.
First, think about your topic and write down
words that encompass your topic or that are synonyms for
it. For instance if your topic is dogs - "canine" is a
synonym. If the topic is smoking habits of 17 year old girls,
try "smoking AND female AND high school seniors."
Second, learn as much as possible about the
search engine you are using. You can use the operators
AND, OR & NOT to narrow or broaden your search in many
search engines but not all. SPARROWS AND COCONUTS would
return only those sites with both the words. TEETH OR JAW
would return sites with either of the words. HANDS NOT
FEET would return the sites that mentioned hands but did not
mention feet. NOT should be used sparingly
because you usually cut out relevant
articles. To search for a phrase you can
either put the words in quotes __"JERRY MCGUIRE"__ or many
search engines (such as Google Advanced
Search) have a place for
limiting the search to a phrase.
Third, persistence is essential. Many
times the information you need is somewhere on the internet, it
just takes time to find it.
Search Engine Features http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/
Web Searching Tips http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/index.html