Search Engine Savvy Shirley McDonald Debbie Henson LLA March 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” – info-2003/execsum.htm 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” –

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 Search.htm 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) 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 :  gies/a_boolean 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

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” –

Search Engines Beaucoup  Clusty – results in clusters (subject)  Hotbot – allows advanced search with limiters  Ask.com 

Search Engines AlltheWeb  Quintura – “tag cloud” approach/visual search engine  Healia – consumer health  SearchMedica – designed for doctors  WebMd 

More Search Engines Ujiko  WordIQ – search for definitions, e-books, etc.  Exalead  Technorati – searching blogs 

Subject Directories The Mining Company  Infomine – scholarly resources  About.com  Resources for School Librarians  Open Directory Project  Complete Planet 

Meta-searchers Findelio – WHOIS listed with each search result  GigaBlast – posts when site was published/updated  SurfWax  CSE Links – custom search engines  Whonu 

More meta-searchers iBoogie – clusters results  Izito – clusters results  All-in-One Search Page  SavvySearch  Kartoo – visual meta searcher 

Virtual Libraries/Databases Internet Archive  Movies, images, text, music, Wayback Machine Internet Public Library  Academic Index – free reference metasearch  CyberDewey – Internet sites arranged by Dewey  Librarians Internet Index  Google Scholar 

Miscellaneous Mahalo is a “human-powered” search engine.  Teacher Tube  Flight tracker  U. S. Government Manual  PersonFinder  Ask An Expert 

Kid Safe Search Engines and Directories Ask for Kids  Kids Click  Kids.Net  Kids’ Tools for Searching the Internet  TekMom’s Search Tools for Students 

Kid Safe… ALA’s Great Web Sites for Kids  bsites&template=/cfapps/gws/default.cfm bsites&template=/cfapps/gws/default.cfm Kids.gov  Awesome Library for Kids  Kids Konnect 

Searching for Pictures Ditto  Picsearch  FlickrStorm  Search-22  Pixsy – pictures and videos (blocked as “hosting site” by our filter) 

Searching for Sounds FindSounds  Nature Songs  Sound Tracks  Make4fun  Also videos, audio, etc. (May not be kid safe) Partners in Rhyme 

Specialized searches Topix – news “community”  SLDirectory’s Links  ent.html#top ent.html#top “Research beyond Google” – 119 resources  basics/research-beyond-google basics/research-beyond-google

Choosing the best search Noodletools - chart  on/5locate/adviceengine.html on/5locate/adviceengine.html Finding Information: Search Engines by Phil Bradley - chart  The Top 100 Alternative Search Tools (filter at our school blocked for “weapons” – I haven’t figured that out yet!)  native_search_engines.php native_search_engines.php

Evaluation  Berkeley’s checklist for students rnet/EvalForm_General.pdf rnet/EvalForm_General.pdf  Joyce Valenza’s WebQuest for high school  Kathy Schrock’s page eval.html 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  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 Henson  Shirley McDonald 