Intelligent web searching Laura Jeffrey Researcher Training Librarian

Session outline Search engines – Types, how they work, interrogating results Make your own search engine Academic resources Organising, referencing and annotating

Access to tools Handouts and slides are available at Most of the links mentioned in today’s session are included in the handout Or via the web page:

Intelligent web searching What are you looking for? – Breadth or precision – Single document or comprehensive coverage How are you searching? – Targeted searching Combining terms = narrow search; AND is assumed OR, “phrase”, -not, ˜synonym, words**in between, site:ac.uk, date:months – Evaluating results

Intelligent web searching What are you looking for? How are you searching? What tools are you using? – Variety of access points – Range of search engines

Activity Using the search engine that you use most often, search for information on: library history in nineteenth century Britain Search

Why use another search engine? Different results – scale of the web – the hidden web Different order – ranking depends on location of word in title, headings, frequency, proximity Different search options

Types of search engine Keyword Directory Visual results Real time Content specific Netvibes page

Interrogating your results Meta-search engines Comparative search engines International search engines

Hands-on Carry out searches relevant to your research and use the grid to record your results Try a search engine you wouldn’t normally use Look at the advanced search option Are there any results that will make you refine your search? Does a meta-search engine give you new results?

Personalised search engines Tailor to your needs before you search Search by keywords, search engines, websites General e.g. Clusty, Google Custom Search, Rollyo, SearchbotGoogle Custom Search Social element e.g. Eurekster and Decipho

Hands-on Set up a Google account Create a Custom Search Engine Bookmark or add it to your iGoogle homepage Go back and add more pages Try a search with it

Academic resources Full text, taster or bibliographic details Virtual libraries – Librarians’ Index to the Internet, WWW Virtual Library Generic portals – BUBL, Pinakes, Google Scholar, Infomine, Intute BUBLGoogle ScholarIntute Subject portals – TechXtra, BizSeer, ScirusScirus Set Google Scholar to find DUL resources

Academic resources Books – Google Books, Gutenberg Project, Universal Library, Alex, Gallica, ORB Google BooksAlex Journal ToCs – ticTOCs, My Favourite Journals, CiteULike Current Issues, jOPML ticTOCs

Academic resources Open Access and repositories Institutional: DRO, D-space at MITDRO Subject specific: ArXiv, British History Online Harvesters: OAIster, Driver, Google ScholarOAIster

Hands-on Look at some of the portals and search engines that give you access to academic resources on the web Compare these resources with those that you find from search engines Do they highlight different/new resources?

Organising the web Online Bookmarks available from any computer – General: Backflip, deliciousdelicious – Academic: bibsonomy, citeulike, Connotea, Brainify, ZoteroConnotea Collections of useful sites – page flakes, netvibes, Squidoo

Referencing web pages Author (date or last updated) Title. Available at: URL (Accessed on: date). Durham University Library (6 November 2009) Intelligent web searching. Available at: ch/ (Accessed on: 13 November 2009). ch/

Annotating the web Remember why you bookmarked a page Highlight, add post-it notes, then bookmark and share with colleagues Diigo, ButterFly, Protonotes, MyStickies, Wizlite Diigo

Alerts Repeat your keyword searches Google alerts Yahoo! alerts Monitor specific pages e.g. an academic’s profile Watch that Page Change detect

Hands on Look at organising your web pages using general or academic bookmarking sites Set up alerts for keywords or a specific page

Conclusions Large number of tools not all as intuitive as Google Web searching can become a targeted and time-saving exercise Important to organise your findings But remember… Web is just part of suite of research tools

Evaluation Please feedback your thoughts on this session More information Laura Jeffrey – or Liaison Librarian for your department –