The Library and the Internet: Complementary Research Tools Research Methods & Data College of Advancing Studies Brendan Rapple http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Library Resources versus Internet Resources “Library resources” and “internet resources” -- really a false dichotomy. A great proportion of library resources are available on the web. The parameters of a “library” and “library or information research” are increasingly blurred. Millions of scholarly web sites have nothing to do with libraries. We should remember that most serious research necessitates utilization of a library’s databases as well as resources on the web.

The Library and the Web . . . A vast amount of material potentially valuable for research is freely available on the web. Confining one’s research material to what libraries purchase is certainly poor research practice. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Not Easy to Use the Library Today’s library is very challenging due to the digital revolution the information explosion the resultant embarrassment of choice, the myriad ways to access information. Many libraries point to hundreds of databases. Much database searching is not particularly intuitive. Few databases are as inviting as Google, Amazon, or Netflix. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Usage of Google People like it: it’s powerful and often effective. Seems easy (perhaps deceptively easy) to use. Still, a common problem is a sole reliance on Google. Consequent neglect of a library’s resources and databases. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

11/10/2018 Chronicle of Higher Education (Copyright) http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Is Google Used Efficiently and Effectively? How often is Google’s advanced searching http://www.google.com/advanced_search capability utilized? How many click on Google’s MORE http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ link which provides more focused searching by Catalogs Directory Images Maps Finance News Patents and a host of other options. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Google Scholar Though not as focused as many “library” databases, Google Scholar has great size, breadth and cross-disciplinary depth. Types of scholarly material Google Scholar points to include Peer-reviewed articles Theses Books Abstracts and papers from professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Searching preferences may be set to a library’s holdings so that relevant hits will be linked to results. Consult Advanced Scholar Search Tips http://scholar.google.com/scholar/refinesearch.html to increase search accuracy. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Google Book Search http://books.google.com/ An initiative to digitize books from a growing number of major libraries (presently 25 in the US, UK, Spain and Germany). Potential number of books to be digitized is vast. Almost all of the U. of Michigan’s over 7,000,000 volumes will be copied. Only digitized books in public domain will be accessible full-text online. Still, hundreds of thousands of books are already freely available full-text. This potent research tool should be known and utilized by all researchers. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

© 1996 Ed Stein 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Google: Not the Only Search Engine Scores and scores of others, including: Ask.com http://www.ask.com/ Scirus http://scirus.com/ Yippy http://yippy.com/ Bing http://www.bing.com/ Exalead http://www.exalead.com/search and of course Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com/ 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Important to Remember that Different search engines search different parts of the web They do it in different ways There are also widely divergent methods of ranking results. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Capabilities of Different Search Engines Some are good at finding still and moving images (e.g. Yahoo!Video for video) visual searches (e.g. Search-Cube) finding blogs (e.g. Technorati for blogs) retrieving podcasts (e.g. Podcast Search Engines) retrieving sounds (e.g. Findsounds) and so on. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Healia.com -- searches medical info. Regator.com -- searches blogs More Search Engines Healia.com -- searches medical info. Regator.com -- searches blogs Picsearch --Finds pictures/images Answers.com – Question and answer 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Useful Overviews Of Search Engines Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alt_search_engines_april07.php Which Search Engine When? http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher http://wikis.ala.org/lita/index.php/Tool_Kit_for_the_Expert_Web_Searcher Search Engine Resources http://www.refdesk.com/newsrch.html Wikipedia List of Search Engines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Selective Web Guides Categorized/annotated guides to web sites generally selected by educators. Sites carefully evaluated for accuracy and high quality content. Examples: INFOMINE http://infomine.ucr.edu/ Intute http://www.intute.ac.uk/ BUBL LINK http://bubl.ac.uk/ Scirus http://www.scirus.com/ IPL2 http://www.ipl.org/ 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt

Conclusion Scholarly research generally requires strong familiarity with print and electronic resources purchased by Library vast amount of quality information and data available for free on the internet. To limit oneself to one type of resource is not good research practice. 11/10/2018 http://www2.bc.edu/~baildon/gradorientationSep05.ppt