Mechanics of Internet Top Level Domains Top Level Domain Kind of Organization.comCommercial site (most companies use this extension).eduEducational institution.govGovernment agency.milMillitary organization.orgNon-profit or non- commercial organization.infoIndividual or company Country Extension Country.atAustria.auAustralia.esSpain.caCanada.frFrance.ukUnited Kingdom Digital Information Resources Top level domains

Browsers Browser is the program that serves as your window to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's location field There are many different browsers that are available. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) Netscape’s Navigator Mozilla Firefox Apple Safari Google Chrome Opera The Mechanics of Internet Digital Information Resources

Parts of a browser window The Mechanics of Internet Digital Information Resources Parts of a browser

How to use browsers – History: Finding pages you have recently visited – Home Page: Choosing a page that you want to view frequently – Bookmarks/Favorites: Storing references of your favorite sites The Mechanics of Internet Digital Information Resources Add to Favorites Choosing Home page History

Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, manage, share and search for bookmarks of web pages and resources online. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but depending on the service's features, may be saved privately, shared only with specific people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private. Allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, via a search engine, or even randomly. Most Social bookmark services provide users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags and they also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag. Besides, some social bookmarking services draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks. Social Bookmarking Social Bookmarking Bar Digital Information Resources

Social Bookmarking Digital Information Resources TASK – Open a web browser – Write the url to address barwww.delicious.com – Write “information literacy” to search area – Discuss the advantages and disadvantages according to other search engines

A search engine is an enormous database of websites compiled by a software robot that seeks out indexed websites, and sometimes other Internet resources as well. There are thousands of search engines, and they vary in speed and skill. How a Search Engine works? When you use a search engine, you are not searching the entire web for the latest information. What you are doing is searching the full-text index of that search engine. Think of index as a computerized book index. Search Engines Digital Information Resources

You can consider the search engines as different tools for different purposes. Common search engines are; AltaVista ( Google ( Yahoo ( MSN ( AlltheWeb ( Search Engines Digital Information Resources

Essentials of Effective Search Type one or more search terms (the words or phrase that best describe the information you want to find) into the search box and hit the 'Enter' key or click on the Google Search button. In response, Google produces a results page: a list of web pages related to your search terms, with the most relevant page appearing first, then the next, and so on. Search Engines Digital Information Resources

Some tips to maximize the effectiveness of your search: Boolean Operators AND OR NOT NEAR Let’s go through the example; Search “Nirvana” in Google. (that is the final emancipation of the soul from transmigration in Buddhism.) 1.Try “Nirvana” 2.Try “Nirvana AND Buddhism” 3.Try “Nirvana AND Buddhism NOT Cobain” Effective Search Digital Information Resources

Exclusion of Common Words – Google ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. – By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don't add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around the word will do the same thing. – Let’s go through another example; Search the Star Wars Episode 1 Try Star Wars Episode 1 Try Star Wars Episode +1 Try “Star Wars Episode 1” Effective Search Digital Information Resources

Negative Searches: If your search term has more than one meaning or may be linked with another term (bass, for example, could refer to fishing or music ; or Ewing, for example, could refer to information on John Ewing or John Ewing and Math for America ) you can focus your search by putting a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid. Let’s go through the following examples: – Example 1 : Search bass which refers to all the meanings of it. 1.Try bass – Example 2 : Search bass which refers to fishing. 1.Try bass –music – Example 3 : Search bass which refers to music. 1.Try bass –fishing – Example 4 : Search Ewing, but not Math for America. 1.Try Ewing –"Math for America" Effective Search Digital Information Resources

Specialized Search Engines: "collect" web documents along a topical theme. For example, in the Arts, Science-related topics or even more specialized subjects such as Ancient History of the Mediterranean The followings are sites which group or list subject specific search engines or tools: Google Scholar ( ) Advanced Scholar Search ( ) Windows Live Academic Search ( ) Specialized Search Engines Digital Information Resources

A subject directory is a subject tree or subject directory, that is, a listing of subjects organized into categories, which are usually arranged hierarchically. For example if you are looking for information on web development, the hierarchy might look something like this; Computers Internet Web Development Common directories Yahoo! ( (commercial) Open Directory ( (noncommercial) Subject Directories Digital Information Resources

When to use Subject Directories: Subject directories are useful when you want to know more on broad-based subjects, such as General/Popular topics Specialized Directories Current Events Product Information Why can’t I find what I want? Incorrect spelling/type poorly described or conceptualized topic query is too general or specific If all these are OK  Invisible Web Subject Directories Digital Information Resources

The "invisible web" is what you cannot retrieve ("see") in the search results and other links contained in these types of contents. The reason for a invisible web is that the site is Passworded Copy righted Excluded by Policy The solution is Library Research Invisible Web Digital Information Resources

Library Research Research libraries contain vast ranges of printed books, copy-righted materials in a variety of other formats, and site-licensed subscription databases that are not accessible from anywhere, at anytime, by anybody on the Web. Moreover, many of these resources allow avenues of subject access that cannot be matched by “relevance ranked” keyword searching. Digital Information Resources

Library Research OPAC : (Online Public Access Catalog) is an online bibliography of a library collection that is available to the public. You can access to the METU’s library from the following link: You can search the library's holdings for books, eBooks, digital records, images, periodicals, and more from the” Library Catalog Search” You can use the following links to get detailed information: Digital Information Resources

METU Library Research You can search the library's holdings for books, eBooks, digital records, images, periodicals, and more from the” Library Catalog Search” Digital Information Resources

METU Library Research Digital Information Resources Let’s make a search. Open METU library web page – ( ) – Try to find the book “Computers are your future” – Send the information about the book (Author, Location and Call No) to the forum.