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Online Instruction in Searching the Web
Start by taking this online tutorial. It presents an easy-to-follow process on using search engines and subject directories for finding what you need on the World Wide Web. Minutes spent here will save you hours of frustration.
Michael's Tips to Improve Search Results
Michael Hunter, of Search Engine Watch, takes you step by step through an advanced search. It frequently helps to look over someone's shoulder.
Finding Information on the Internet
So you want more? This UC Berkeley tutorial grew out of the experience of the Teaching Library at UC Berkeley in offering beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses on using the Internet's resources to find information. "From this experience we came to believe that the investment of time to learn to effectively and efficiently find information on the Internet using complex search strategies is worthwhile." Search Strategies Search with Peripheral Vision Summary of the Berkeley tutorial on a single web page.
Top 5 Ways to Keep Up With World News
Review this useful sheet of instructions, from About.com, outlining the various techniques for gathering news from the Internet.
** Researching Companies Online
This business research tutorial presents a step-by-step process for finding free company and industry information on the World Wide Web.
Evaluating Information Sources found on the Web
"The Internet is a virtual library, consisting of an unlimited amount of information. Anyone is allowed to publish and access this information. Furthermore, the sites are created for a variety of purposes to inform, persuade, sell, and change an attitude or belief. The sites are not monitored, edited, regulated, or approved. All of these factors remind us of the fact that information that has been published on the Web, is no indication of its believability or accuracy." -- EPS 304, University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign
Evaluating Web Pages Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask
Those Berkeley librarians teach you to ask a series of questions when evaluating web sites.
How Credible is the Information From the Internet?
Craig Landy and Michael Hunter write about a topic that should concern every researcher, the trustworthiness of information gleaned from the Internet.
Evaluating Internet Information
The Internet epitomizes the concept of Caveat lector: Let the reader beware. This document from John Hopkins University discusses the criteria by which scholars in most fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can be used to assess information found on the Internet.
How to Critically Analyze Information Sources.
In a more general vein, we have this quick guide to help you determine the relevance and authority of a resource, from Cornell University.
Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals.
What it says. Also from Cornell University.
Evaluation of Information Sources
A briefly annotated list of links from the WWW Virtual Library. It is intended to be particularly useful to librarians and others who are selecting sites to include in an information resource guide, or informing users as to the qualities they should use in evaluating Internet information.
Bookmark this helpful reference page. This article, by Robert Harris, describes 1998 MLA Web citation style. The style may at first seem complicated, but it is not. Look at the examples and you'll see that for most Web sites, citation is straightforward.
Advanced Search on Major Search Engines
"To use search engines effectively, it is essential to apply techniques that narrow results and push the most relevant pages to the top of the results list." - from Web Search Strategies
Gigablast: Advanced Search
http://gigablast.com/adv.html
Read Gigablast review.
Google:
Advanced Search
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Read Google review.
Consult advanced search features: Google.
Google Search Tips:
AND default. " " for phrases. - excludes.
Ex: ucb OR cal
Ex: "whatever * * * jane"
Ex: "to be or not to be" +the bears
Lycos: Advanced Search
http://search.lycos.com/adv.asp
Lycos Web Results are brought to you by FAST, a
third-party Internet search and filtering company formed in 1997 at a technical
university in Norway. FAST's results are relevant and on-target, designed to
give you what you're looking for within the first ten results. Lycos now
shows an Inktomi logo and uses the same Inktomi-based database as is seen at
AltaVista and AlltheWeb. And that database appears to be but a subset of the
version available at Yahoo!
HotBot: Advanced Search (Owned by Lycos)
http://www.hotbot.com/adv.asp
Read HotBot review.
MSN:
Advanced Search
http://search.msn.com/advanced.aspx
Read MSN review.
Consult advanced search features: MSN.
Teoma:
Advanced Search
http://s.teoma.com/AdvancedSearch
Read Teoma review.
Teoma Search Tips:
Ex: ucb OR cal
Ex: +to +be +or not +to +be +the bearsAsk Jeeves
http://www.ask.com
Jeeves is powered by Teoma. Teoma is unique from any other search technology because it analyzes the Web as it actually exists - in subject-specific communities. Jeeves is able to understand the natural language context of what you are asking, and thus he can offer you answers and search suggestions in the same human terms in which we all communicate.
Yahoo!:
Advanced Search
http://search.yahoo.com/search/options
Read Yahoo! review.
Yahoo! Search Tips:
Ex: libraries AND (ucb OR cal) AND NOT bearsAllTheWeb: Advanced Search (Now owned by Yahoo!)
http://www.alltheweb.com/advanced
Consult advanced search features: AllTheWeb.AltaVista: Advanced Search (Now owned by Yahoo!)
http://www.altavista.com/web/adv
Consult advanced search features: AltaVista.
Wisenut:
Advanced Search
http://wisenut.com/WiseSearch/
Read Wisenut review.
"A subject directory is a catalog of sites collected and organized by humans. Subject directories are often called subject "trees" because they start with a few main categories and then branch out into subcategories, topics, and subtopics." - from Web Search Strategies
Major Directories: Arranged by Size
Yahoo! is the best known and the largest subject directory on the Internet and is an excellent site for finding topics that appeal to the general public. Originally managed by a human editor staff, Yahoo recently switched to "automated-crawling" like Google uses. With the acquisition of AlltheWeb, GoTo (Overture), and AltaVista, Yahoo is now an amalgam of many different database technologies. Furthermore, Yahoo is also a full-featured consumer portal like MSN, providing shopping, news, and other services beyond searching.
Open Directory Project -- DMOZ
The Open Directory (DMOZ.org), sponsored by Netscape, and employing 50,000 volunteer experts as editors, contains about 4 million links in its database. Although less than 1% the size of Google, DMOZ.org is packed with helpful hand-picked Internet links that have been filtered by human judgment. The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others. Although irrelevant content is usually filtered out, content quality varies with the quality of volunteerism.
LookSmart is a leader in commercial search services and a developer of innovative web search solutions. Combining award-winning technology, editorial expertise, and community-based initiatives, LookSmart provides users with highly relevant search results, while delivering targeted sales leads to online businesses.
What You Need to Know About™ -- About.com
The About network consists of hundreds of Guide sites neatly organized into 23 channels. Each topic area has an assigned "Guide" responsible for writing articles and organizing links on the topic. The sites cover more than 50,000 subjects with over 1 million links to the best resources on the Net and the fastest-growing archive of high quality original content. Topics range from pregnancy to cars, palm pilots to painting, weight loss to video game strategies. When you want to focus on a single topic, About is often the single best free resource for depth and breadth. Be forewarned though, About is powered by advertising.
Minor Directories: Arranged Alphabetically
Academic Info
adds between 200 and 500 new resources each month. The primary focus of the site must be academic, with its intended audience at the upper high school level or above. A priority is adding digital collections from libraries, museums, and academic organizations and sites offering unique online content. Will add annotated subject directories but not sites with only a "list of links."All.info is the first search directory to tackle the issue of site credibility in a scalable system. Aside from a proprietary ranking algorithm, All.info uses the information provided by web site producers, who know most about their sites, to help users better find and assess the credibility of these web sites.
BUBL LINK is the name of a catalogue of selected Internet resources covering all academic subject areas and catalogued according to DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification). All items are selected, evaluated, catalogued and described. Links are checked and fixed each month. LINK stands for Libraries of Networked Knowledge.
InfoMine is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information. Infomine is librarian built. Librarians from the University of California, Wake Forest University, California State University, the University of Detroit - Mercy, and other universities and colleges have contributed to building Infomine.
Internet Public Library -- IPL
The Internet Public Library (IPL), is a public service organization and learning/teaching environment at the University of Michigan School of Information.
Librarians' Index to the Internet -- LII
Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII), whose motto is: "Information You Can Trust", is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 12,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries. LII is used by both librarians and the general public as a reliable and efficient guide to Internet resources.
World Wide Web Virtual Library -- WWW Virtual Library
The WWW Virtual Library is the oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of html and the web itself. Unlike commercial catalogs, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert; even though it isn't the biggest index of the web, the Virtual Library pages are widely recognized as being amongst the highest-quality guides to particular sections of the web.
Meta-Search Engines of Interest (and there are dozens)
"In a meta-search engine, you submit keywords in its search box, and it transmits your search simultaneously to several individual search engines and their databases of web pages. Within a few seconds, you get back results from all the search engines queried. Meta-search engines do not own a database of Web pages; they send your search terms to the databases maintained by search engine companies." - UC Berkeley Library
This
crudely named, but popular website searches 8 search engines and subject
directories as well as newsgroups, business news, and newswires, combining
results from Google, Yahoo, Altavsita, and AskJeeves. Dogpile uses clustering
technology; and it explicitly labels the links that are sponsored versus those
that are legitimate search results. Almost everybody knows how to "Google"
and "Dogpile" searches.
A favorite of mine! Vivisimo, like Dogpile, is an excellent alternative to Google. It is fast, clean, and relevant, and it offers guiding search suggestions in the form of "clustered results" in the left margin. Clustering means, if you search for the keywords "german shepherds", Vivisimo will also offer you results organized by "breeds", "training", "breeders", "rescue", and "clubs". (Hint: use implied Boolean logic (+/-) and phrase searching.)
Vivisimo Search Tips:
SurfWax's patent-pending design is the first to make searching a "visual process," seamlessly integrating meaning-based search with key knowledge-finding elements for effective association and recall.
Try this one. KartOO is a French-based meta search engine and a delightful alternative to SurfWax! Although lacking in database size, KartOO shines with its graphical presentation. By using a visual "mindmap" to display its results, users can see how keywords branch out to specific hits. You can even customize how the map displays on your screen! If you're not in a hurry to do your searching, then try this beautiful Flash interface!
IxQuick is a remarkable MetaSearch Engine that has won numerous awards, praise and recognition for being the best of its kind. It was created keeping researchers, educators, historians, librarians, scholars, students and the world's scientific, literary and media community in mind: those who are dedicated to keeping us better informed and making all of our lives richer, easier and more fulfilling.
Pro-Researcher is a UK metasearch engine dedicated to uncovering information for professionals: librarians, researchers and journalists.
Ithaki is meta-search engine with a focus on International search, this meta-search engine offers searching in twenty languages. This engine features an excellent advanced search page that lets users narrow down exactly what it is they are looking for before entering their search query. The site also feature an excellent "preview" function that allows users to take a quick peek at a Web site before clicking through to it.
Grub's Distributed Web Crawling Project (This project is shaping up into another Teoma.)
Grub is mapping the Web. Combining revolutionary crawling technology, the power of distributed computing, and a global community of volunteers, Grub seeks to crawl every website, every day and to provide definitive answers about the true nature of the Web.
Copernic Software (You must install this soft,are to perform a meta-search.)
Copernic Agent Basic gives you the ability to cover more of the Web and to get relevant, high quality results from more than 90 search engines grouped into categories. From a single query, Copernic Agent Basic consults multiple search engines at once, combines their results, removes duplicates and keeps only the very best of the information gathered from queried search engines. Basic is free, but Copernic addicts generally upgrade to Personal or Professonal.
Copernic Meta is a (free) add-in for Windows and Internet Explorer that provides quick and permanent access to powerful Web searching. Performing simultaneous searches on multiple search engines, Copernic Meta allows you to explore more of the Web than any single search engine. It also lets you easily integrate the search functionalities of any search engine directly with the Copernic Meta toolbar. Meta also lets you add any search engine to the toolbar, so you can have access to all of your favorite search engines through this great utility.
"The Invisible Web consists of files, images and Web sites that, for a variety of reasons, cannot be indexed by popular search engines like Google, FAST and Alta Vista. Some of the most sought after information on the Internet is contained within databases and indexes that are considered part of the Invisible Web." - from "What is the Invisible Web?" at About.com.
The RDN is UK based resource collaboration of over seventy educational and research organizations, including the Natural History Museum and the British Library. In contrast to search engines, the RDN gathers resources which are carefully selected, indexed and described by specialists in their partner institutions. You can be confident that your search results and browsing will connect you to Web sites relevant to learning, teaching and research. While the site is not completely made up of sites from the Invisible Web, a great portion of the sites listed would be difficult to locate with a traditional search engine.
The Invisible Web
http://www.invisibleweb.com
A search engine style collection of over 10,000 databases, archives and search engines that feature content from the Invisible Web. The site features a brief tutorial that helps visitors learn to tailor their searches in order to produce higher quality results. The site includes access to patent databases, mailing list archives, expert directories, scientific research data and dozens of other topics organized into over 800 directory categories.
Complete Planet
http://www.completeplanet.com
The Invisible Web search engine developed by Deep Web experts Bright Planet serves as one of the most comprehensive entry points to the Invisible Web available today. Complete Planet indexes more than 100,000 directories and speciality search engines in a database that can be browsed or searched. Unlike traditional directories, site listings are placed in every category that they are appropriate for, making it easier to find the specific site you are looking for.
Invisible-Web.Net
http://www.invisible-Web.net
A hand compiled listing of entry points to the Invisible Web, this site is also home to Chris Sherman and Gary Price's popular book "The Invisible Web." The site features excerpts from the book as well as 18 topical categories of sites that can be browsed through.
Learn about blogs. Daypop searches personal web logs, or blogs. Blogs are everywhere, and it is important to either be able to search them or to make sure you’re not searching them when you are looking for authoritative, accurate, and unbiased information. Most of the larger search engines have changed their algorithms so that blogs are not the most highly ranked sites. Unlike general search engines, many blog search engines do not craw the entire web or even the full text of blogs. Christina K. Pikas, MLS, Technical Librarian at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, reviews various blog search engines and comments on future Trends in Blog Searching.
Other Blog Search Sites
Blog Search Engine
Feedster
BlogStreet
Blogarama
Globe of Blogs
BlogDex
Weblogs.com
BlogWise
BlogHop
BlogUniverse
"Sometimes a specialty database will be more effective at finding what you need than a general search engine." - from Web Search Strategies
LookSmart also offers free access to the full-text of articles published in over 300 magazines and journals dating from 1998. The database can be searched by keyword and by one of the nine subject categories. Search returns include article title, periodical, and short description, with a link to the full-text. Visitors can also view a list of the publications indexed.
Gabriel Gateway is the World Wide Web service of Europe's National Libraries represented in the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL). In Gabriel you can find information about all the National Libraries of Europe, their services and the online exhibitions they offer.
Electronic Journal Miner only lists e-journals and other online serials that are available from publishers or directly from their producer. Many electronic journals are found in aggregations (e.g. EBSCOhost, Gale InfoTrac). These may be found by using Gold Rush (http://goldrush.coalliance.org) a system produced by the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries that lists serials embedded within other aggregations or databases.
MagPortal is a current awareness resource to stay abreast of recent free magazine articles available online. Updated each business day, the site organizes the articles in nine main categories. The articles are briefly described, and links are provided to the full text and the main site of the periodical. A master list of the periodicals indexed is not (yet) available.
"While there are some databases that search multiple library catalogs, none of them cover every single library out there. Since libraries tend to be run by the government or by educational institutions, their databases are usually internal. This makes it hard for a single site to gather the information from all of them into a single, searchable interface." - from "A more convenient way to research"
First Search allows access to 72 different library databases. The down side of First Search is that it is not available to the average Internet consumer. First Search is licensed to libraries that can then choose to make the technology available to their members. Your best bet is to contact your local library to see if they have First Search access, and if so, find out how you can use it.
IRIS Search allows access to over 20 million catalog records from leading research libraries in the UK and the United States.
Amicus is a product of the National Library of Canada and features records from over 500 Canadian libraries.
Law Libraries will let you search the catalogs of over a dozen law schools including Columbia, Boston University, NYU and Yale.
Illinet is designed to find books and library materials at over 55 libraries in the Illinois Library Computer System Organization. Their database contains over seven million bibliographic records and over twenty-one million items.
LibDex features an index of over 18,000 libraries. The idea behind LibDex is to create a directory listing the OPACs (Online Public Access Catalog) of every library that makes them available online. From this site, you can find links to the OPACs of libraries in over 100 countries, including Bahrain, Guam, Israel, Sri Lanka and Yemen. (Yes, the USA and Great Britain are in there too!) You can't search the databases of each of these libraries from a single form, but it can serve as a great starting point for finding a library to site that offers a catalog search.
Library catalog search list taken from About.com 6/04: http://websearch.about.com/cs/articles/a/qalibrary.htm
Coming Soon - The Death of Search Engines
By Rita Vine, a professional librarian and co-founder of Workingfaster.com. This controversial article examines why searching getting harder and less productive, what might reasonably happen over the next several months to search engines as we know them, and what this might mean for searchers.