Google™

and Beyond…

Hatch Library Bay Path College / Spring 2010

Overview1. Classifying and Evaluating

Websites

2. Google Scholar

3. Subject Directories

4. Reference Universe

Critical EvaluationWhy Evaluate What You Find on the

Web?

Anyone can put up a web

page about anything Many pages not kept up-to-date No quality control

most sites not “peer-reviewed” (less trustworthy than scholarly publications)

no selection guidelines for search engines

Before you click to view the page...

Look at the URL - personal page or site? ~ or % or users or members

Domain name appropriate for the content? edu, com, org, net, gov, ca, us, uk, etc.

Published by an entity that makes sense? News from its source?

www.nytimes.com Advice from a valid agency?

www.nih.gov/

Scan the perimeter of the page

Can you tell who wrote it?name of page authororganization, institution, agency you recognize

e-mail contact by itself not enough

Credentials for the subject matter? Look for links to:

“About us” “Philosophy” “Background” “Biography”

Scan the perimeter of the page(continued)

Is it recent or current enough? Look for “last updated” date -

usually at bottom

If no links or other clues... truncate back the URL

From: http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/faculty/nute/FScareers.html

To:http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/

Web Evaluation Techniques

Indicators of Quality Are sources documented?

Examples: links, footnotes, etc.-Are they as detailed as you expect in

print publications? Do the links work?

Is the information altered or forged?

What about the links to other resources?

Are they biased, slanted?

Web Evaluation Techniques

What Do Others Say? Search a URL in alexa.com

Who links to the site? Who owns the domain?

Which sites are getting the most visits?

What information are people seeking?

See what links are in Google’s “Similar

Pages”

Look up the page’s author in Google

Web Evaluation Techniques

Does it all add up? Why was the page put on the Web?

To inform with facts and data? To explain, persuade? To sell, entice? To share, disclose? As a parody or satire?

Is it appropriate for your purpose?

Looking for articles but want to use Google?

Try this instead…

Search a controversial topic in Google:

"illegal immigrants" crime

Now compare your Google

search results to your Google

Scholar search results ...

But first, setup your Google

Scholar Preferences

Access the site at scholar.google.com

Click “Scholar Preferences” – and search

for Bay Path in the Library Links box and

save your changes

Now, when you search, you can see if

you have instant access to Full-Text

articles right in your search results

Which search results would

you rather use in your

research?

Use Subject Directories to find good web

sites

Small Directories Built by information specialists Selected, evaluated, annotated Organized into subject categories

examples: ipl2 (http://www.ipl.org)

Hosted by The iSchool at Drexel, College of Information Science and Technology, with major support from the College of Information at Florida State University

Infomine By UC consortium of library professionals

Academic Info By a librarian in Arizona

Larger Directories Google Web directory

http://directory.google.com 5+ million pages - less than 0.04% of Google

web

About.com – a collection of specialized directories search by subject

Yahoo’s directory http://dir.yahoo.com

4 million unevaluated pages - about 0.06% of Yahoo! search

Try Some Sample Searches

ipl2http://www.ipl.org

INFOMINE http://infomine.ucr.edu

Google Web Directory http://directory.google.com

Reference Universe Use Reference Universe

to find the right authoritative,

introductory article and establish a solid foundation for your research. Your research will be better, and you'll save time.

Access Reference Universe throughthe Hatch

Virtual Library to search for

authoritative

information in electronic

reference books

Google™

is just the tip of the iceberg, so don’t forget to search deeper!

Visit these sites to learn more:

Evaluating Information Found on the Internet

Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet

Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools

Need more assistance? We’re

here to help!Email us directly at

library@baypath.edu or through

our Ask a Librarian page.