Fine-Tuning Your Search Skills Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services

2 What we’ll cover: Seeing 360° degrees of information Real-life example Decision points Tips and techniques

3 Seeing 360° of information Free open web Fee-based invisible web Free invisible web Fee-based value-added services {notice the fuzzy lines}

4 Seeing 360° of information Free open web What you can find through search engines Free invisible web What you can find if you know where to look

5 Seeing 360° of information Fee-based invisible web Pay-to-play databases Fee-based value-added services Dialog, Factiva.com, LexisNexis, etc.

6 Real-life example

7 Real-life example Market research project on the horse feed industry Who are the North American players? What are the brands and how are they positioned? Routes to market for each manufacturer

8 Real-life example Budgeting my time: Two hours total 15 minutes – open web 30 minutes – invisible web (both free and fee) 15 minutes – value-added fee-based services 15 minutes – evaluation 30 minutes – chart the results 15 minutes – mop-up

9 Real-life example Open web Throw “horse feed” at a couple of search engines and see what you get….

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11 Real-life example Through the open web, I could: Identify synonyms Horse / equine / equestrian Feed / food / nutrition / supplements Identify a few major players Hit those web sites and identify trends, concerns

12 Real-life example Identify web directories Sports>Equestrian>Health Care>Nutrition Shopping>Sports>Equestrian> Healthcare and Grooming>Feed and Supplements Business>Agriculture and Forestry> Livestock>Feeds>Horse Feed Drill down in directories

13 Real-life example Free invisible web SEC EDGAR database Annual reports of privately-held companies Findarticles.com for random articles

14 Real-life example Fee-based invisible web Market research aggregators: MarketResearch.com MindBranch.com ECNext, etc Remember to shop around… costs vary wildly for same report!

15 Real-life example Professional online services Got some great articles on trends in the “lifestyle” and “commercial” feed products Identified trends in horse owners’ concerns

16 Real-life example Evaluate information Executive summary Mop up – look for missing info-bits

17 Decision Points

18 Decision Points Who knows anything about this and who wants to talk about it? Trade associations Government agencies Lobbying organizations Company press releases or product descriptions

19 Decision Points What kind of search am I doing? Go fee-based if I need: Search sets Field searching Controlled vocabulary indexing Limit by date Limit sources, or search non-English sources in English

20 Decision Points How far back do I need to go? Popular news/info from the past 1 to 6 months: free Obscure/specialized/trade info: fee Anything from more than 6 months ago: fee If I need to find it again later: fee

21 Decision Points If I need to find an obscure expert Identify a discussion group E.g., 800 mHz interference – there’s a Yahoo Group called 800interference

22 Tips and Techniques

23 Tips and Techniques Work from a checklist of formats Articles, white papers, statistics, news, company web sites, etc. Bates’ reference request form Use the web to identify ambiguities Find synonyms and acronyms Look for low-hanging fruit

24 Tips and Techniques Use HotBot.com to search multiple search engines FAST Google Inktomi Teoma

25 Tips and Techniques What can the open web do best? Point of view Company info Association info Identify ambiguities, synonyms

26 Tips and Techniques What can the free invisible web do best? Government info Company info (some of it is buried) Association info (ditto) White papers, reports

27 Tips and Techniques What do fee-based services do best? Deep research Published articles Value-added output Anything you need to retrieve again

28 Tips and Techniques What do print sources do best? Less-frequently-updated info Info that’s difficult to display Research tools (e.g. Encyclopedia of Business Info Sources, Fulltext Sources Online)

29 Tips and Techniques Think about your time. It's the most valuable, most scarce resource you manage.   

30 Mary Ellen offers a free “Tip of the Month” update. If you would like to subscribe, just ask ( ) or go to

31 Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services