deep research in the digital world plain version
TRANSCRIPT
Much of this information is not accessible to many
general search engines’ software spiders, so we
need to use specific search tools to lead us to this
hidden information.
The challenge to is find what you want, not what
Google thinks you want.
• Be clear about what you are looking for! This
part of deep research process requires deep
thinking!• Decide what the question is
• Be as specific as you can
• Be prepared to revisit this part often
• Use thinking tools like mind maps to clarify your
search request
These include specialised search engines,
directories and portals and gateways, databases,
digital libraries and Web 2.0 spaces such as wikis,
blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and topic
aggregators – ScoopiT, Delicious, etc.
Meta search engines combine two or more search
engines enabling a simultaneous search
• PolyCola: http://www.polycola.com/ - allows you to
search any two major search engines simultaneously.
• Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com/ - searches four top
search engines simultaneously.
• Mamma: http://www.mamma.com/ - the mother of all
search engines
Google: http://www.google.com
• The Google generation “squirrel” away information.
• There is very little critical evaluation of what is stored.
• It is claimed searching using Google will only provide 30% of internet
content.
• Remember that Google is a business.
• Google has software to supply what it determines you want based on your
previous searches: good or bad?
TryGoogle Scholar: http://scholar.google.com.au/schhp?hl=en
Google Books: http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en
Exalead: www.exalead.com/search
Yippy: www.yippy.com.com – formerly Clusty
Yahoo!: http://au.yahoo.com/
Directories list websites by category and
subcategory. This makes them great for browsing,
just like you would in a bookshop.
Directories are smaller than search engines but
information is more relevant and grouped together.
• Infomine: http://infomine.ucr.edu/
• Yahoo!Directory: http://au.dir.yahoo.com/
• Open Directory: http://www.dmoz.org/
• WWW Virtual Library: http://vlib.org/
• Internet Public Library: http://www.ipl.org/
• Best of the web: http://botw.org
• Galaxy: http://www.galaxy.com
A digital library is a library where collections are stored in digital formats, not print or other media.
Some examples include:• National Science Digital Library: http://nsdl.org/
• National Library of Australia digital collections: http://www.nla.gov.au/digicoll/
• Australian pictures in Trove: http://trove.nla.gov.au/general/australian-pictures-in-trove
• State Library digitised collections: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/digitised-collections
• DigiMorph (images of morphology of biological specimens): http://www.digimorph.org/
• Become a member of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) so
that you can access their eresources from school or home:
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au
• They provide access to an extensive collection of databases.
• Fill out the online registration form.
• You will be sent your card in the mail.
• You can then use your card details to logon to the databases
and eBooks you want.
You are able to customise your searching to suit your
personal learning requirements.
Examples include:
• Google Blogs: http://www.google.com.au/blogsearch?hl=en
• Twitter: microblogging site: https://twitter.com/
• Delicious: social bookmarking: https://delicious.com/
• Scoop.it! – content creator: http://www.scoop.it/
Good for basic information about topics, especially
popular culture.
Its value in this context is to “cherry pick” sites at
the end of the entry for further information.
Trove- National Library of Australia:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/
Australian Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/
WolframAlpha – computational knowledge engine:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
There are many, many, many, many more.
Look for url’s ending in .edu, .gov, .org and avoid .com