Search Engine Savvy
Shirley McDonaldDebbie HensonLLAMarch 5, 2008
Information Overload “The amount of new information stored on paper,
film, magnetic, and optical media has about doubled in the last three years.”
“Almost 800 MB of recorded information is produced per person each year. It would take 30 feet of books to store the equivalent of 800 MB of information on paper.” (note: based on world population of 6.3 billion)
“How Much Information? 2003” – http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/execsum.htm
Information Overload
In 1994, Google indexed about 20 million pages. In 2004, that number was 8 billion.* That is only a fraction of what is on the Internet.
*”Searching the World Wide Web” – http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/printable/558
The Internet
A self-publishing medium
Not evaluated by professionals
Everything must be analyzed for its accuracy, validity, and appropriateness
General Search Strategies Analyze the topic to define your search.
Think about key words, variations of spelling, acronyms, abbreviations, associations that may have information.
Decide where to begin (subject directory? search engine? database?).
Go from specific to general.
Pay attention to word order.
Search Strategies… Vary your approach as you go.
Switch from search engines to databases to subject directories.
Vary your search terms.
Be aware of how your specific search tool works – use “Help” or “About” links. Internet Search Engine Cheat Sheet
http://web.library.uiuc.edu/grainger/resrc/SEARCH/Search.htm
Capitalize proper nouns
Search Strategies… If you find something useful, bookmark it
so that you can easily find it again.Social bookmarking sites – allows sharing of
sites, bookmarks (some may not make it past your school filter)
http://del.icio.us/ http://www.listible.com/ http://popurls.com/ http://www.backflip.com http://www.furl.net/index.jsp - this was blocked at
my school for “peer-to-peer”
More General Strategies Searching by phrase
Truncation (not supported in all search tools)
Field searching
Quotation marks around phrases, particularly proper names Ex: “presidential race
2008” “George Washington”
For varying forms of a word child*
Specific parts of a web page Image:tornado
Boolean and Operators
Boolean Search Logic AND – usually the default; narrows results OR - broadens search; add synonyms and related
terms NOT – excludes words
Western Connecticut State University: http://library.wcsu.edu/web/assistance/research/nursing/tutorial/e_strate
gies/a_boolean
Operators + or – to include a word or omit (ex: Excite)
Clues from the URL
com – commercial sites; may be biased
edu – university sites; ~ in address indicates teacher or student personal web page
gov – government sites
org – U. S. non-profit organizations; may be biased
net – usually an internet service provider or a person who is a customer of the ISP
mil – U. S. military sites
http://150.108.161.177/onlinequiz/lesson4-2.html
Google isn’t the only tool…Less than half of the searchable Web is fully searchable in Google
Search Engines
Subject Directories
Meta-searchers
Virtual Libraries/Databases
Specialized Databases
Search Engine Rankings Amount of information on site Number of other sites that link to it Number of people who select that link when
searching Length of time the site has been listed in the
search engine database Code of the site Sponsored links; paid for by advertisers
*”Searching the World Wide Web” – http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/printable/558
Search Engines Beaucoup
http://www.beaucoup.com/ Clusty – results in clusters (subject)
http://www.clusty.com Hotbot – allows advanced search with
limiters http://www.hotbot.com
Ask.comhttp://www.ask.com
Search Engines AlltheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/ Quintura – “tag cloud” approach/visual
search enginehttp://www.quintura.com/
Healia – consumer health http://www.healia.com
SearchMedica – designed for doctorshttp://www.SearchMedica.com
WebMdwww.WebMd.com
More Search Engines Ujiko
http://www.ujiko.com/v2a/flash.php?langue=en
WordIQ – search for definitions, e-books, etc. http://www.WordIQ.com
Exalead http://www.exalead.com/search
Technorati – searching blogs http://www.technorati.com/
Subject Directories The Mining Company
http://www.miningco.com/ Infomine – scholarly resources
http://infomine.ucr.edu/ About.com
http://www.about.com Resources for School Librarians
http://www.sldirectory.com/ Open Directory Project
http://www.dmoz.org/ Complete Planet
http://www.completeplanet.com
Meta-searchers Findelio – WHOIS listed with each search result
http://www.findelio.com GigaBlast – posts when site was
published/updated http://www.gigablast.com
SurfWax http://www.surfwax.com
CSE Links – custom search engines http://www.cselinks.com/
Whonu http://www.whonu.com/
More meta-searchers iBoogie – clusters results
http://www.iBoogie.com
Izito – clusters results http://www.izito.com/
All-in-One Search Page http://www.allonesearch.com/
SavvySearch http://www.search.com/
Kartoo – visual meta searcher http://www.kartoo.com/
Virtual Libraries/Databases Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/index.php Movies, images, text, music, Wayback Machine
Internet Public Library www.ipl.org
Academic Index – free reference metasearch http://www.academicindex.net/
CyberDewey – Internet sites arranged by Dewey www.anthus.com/CyberDewey/CyberDewey.html
Librarians Internet Index http://www.lii.org/
Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/
Miscellaneous Mahalo is a “human-powered” search engine.
http://www.mahalo.com Teacher Tube
http://www.teachertube.com Flight tracker
http://www.aeroseek.com/webtrax/fboweb.html U. S. Government Manual
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/index.html PersonFinder
http://person.langenberg.com/ Ask An Expert
http://www.askanexpert.com/
Kid Safe Search Engines and Directories
Ask for Kidshttp://www.askkids.com/
Kids Clickhttp://www.kidsclick.org/
Kids.Nethttp://www.kids.net.au/
Kids’ Tools for Searching the Internet http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
TekMom’s Search Tools for Studentshttp://www.tekmom.com/search/index.html
Kid Safe…
ALA’s Great Web Sites for Kids http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwe
bsites&template=/cfapps/gws/default.cfm
Kids.gov http://www.kids.gov/
Awesome Library for Kids http://www.awesomelibrary.org/student.html
Kids Konnect http://www.kidskonnect.com/
Searching for Pictures Ditto
www.ditto.com
Picsearch www.picsearch.com
FlickrStorm www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm
Search-22 http://www.search-22.com/downloads/images.php
Pixsy – pictures and videos (blocked as “hosting site” by our filter) http://www.pixsy.com/
Searching for Sounds FindSounds
www.FindSounds.com Nature Songs
http://www.naturesongs.com/ Sound Tracks
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ Make4fun
http://www.make4fun.com/audio-clips.htm Also videos, audio, etc. (May not be kid safe)
Partners in Rhyme http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/
Specialized searches
Topix – news “community”http://www.topix.net/
SLDirectory’s Linkshttp://www.sldirectory.com/searchf/entertainm
ent.html#top “Research beyond Google” – 119
resourceshttp://oedb.org/library/college-basics/research
-beyond-google
Choosing the best search Noodletools - chart
http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html
Finding Information: Search Engines by Phil Bradley - chart http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm
The Top 100 Alternative Search Tools (filter at our school blocked for “weapons” – I haven’t figured that out yet!) http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alter
native_search_engines.php
EvaluationBerkeley’s checklist for students
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/EvalForm_General.pdf
Joyce Valenza’s WebQuest for high school http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/evalwebstu.html
Kathy Schrock’s page http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/
eval.html Middle schools: Quality Information Checklist Elementary: Website Investigator
Great resource for Information Literacy of the Web – (awesome site)
Alan November’s Free Info Lit Resources http://www.anovember.com
Information Literacy Quiz (answers and follow-up activities
Websites to Validate (some hoax sites to prove you can’t trust everything on the Internet)
How to Read a Web Address Find the Publisher of a Website What Is the History of a Website Check the External Links