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

Contact Info

Debbie HensonDeborah.henson@lpsb.org

Shirley McDonaldShirley.mcdonald@lpsb.org