Questions To Ask Before Hunting for Stuff on the Web

1. Would I be better off in a selective directory or in a specialized subject directory?

2. Should I be in a database instead of the net? (Some, like MagPortal and FindArticles.com are free)

3. Am I trying to find a set of pages or do I want an answer to a question? (X-Refer, or Ask Jeeves)

4. Might I want to ask a human, either at an "ask an expert" site or in a discussion group or support group?

5. Am I looking for people who share my interest in a topic nobody around me cares anything about?

What's the Difference Between Directories and Search Engines?

1. A directory is like a library catalog -- the items in it are chosen for quality and cataloged by subject

2. A directory is constructed by humans, while a search engine is a piece of software that operates by logarithms

Some Good All Purpose Directories

1. About.com http://about.com/ -- offering human guides for over 700 topics

2. Internet Public Library http://ipl.org/

3. Librarians Index to the Internet http://lii.org/

4. Scout Report Signpost http://www.signpost.org/signpost/ -- over 10,000 reviewed sites, organized by topic

Some Good General Search Engines

1. AltaVista http://www.altavista.com/ -- best for coverage of non-American web sites, translation feature, available family filter

2. Ask Jeeves http://www.askjeeves.com/ -- tries to answer questions, and in case you don't like the answers, shows results from other search engines

3. FastSearch http://www.alltheweb.com/

4. Google http://www.google.com/ -- ranks by link popularity. Has a "more like this" feature.

5. HotBot http://hotbot.lycos.com/ -- advanced search offers most control of every element of your search; Direct Hit collaborative filtering

6. Infoseek http://infoseek.go.com/ -- more like this feature

7. LycosPro http://lycospro.lycos.com/

8. MSNSearch http://search.msn.com/

9. Northern Lighthttp://www.northernlight.com/ -- custom search folders, searches an article database as well, articles available cheap

10. Subjex http://www.subjex.com/
    a question-answering engine that for me works better than Ask Jeeves

    NOT Yahoo! -- indexes only itself, searches only through document titles, URLs and brief site descriptions. Use Yahoo! as a directory

Some Specialized Search Engines

1. Adobe PDF Search Engine http://searchpdf.adobe.com/ -- lengthy files stored in pdf format are usually not accessible to search engines

2. AllHealthNet.com http://www.allhealthnet.com/ -- searches only medical sites.

3. Amazing Picture Machine http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm -- picture search engine

4. Ask Jeeves for Kids http://www.ajkids.com/ -- a kid-friendly database of answers

5. Celebhoo http://celebhoo.com/ -- searches fan and celebrity pages

6. Deja.Com http://www.deja.com/ -- searches newsgroups

7. FindLaw http://www.findlaw.com/

8. The Invisible Web http://www.invisibleweb.com/ -- to find the kinds of sites search engines aren't able to get into

9. Kids Click http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/

10. SearchBug: the Most Useful Searches http://www.searchbug.com/ -- has saved results of the most common searches, by topic, keyword searchable

11. SearchEdu.com http://www.searchedu.com/ -- restricts itself to searching university web sites, along with links to related topics in the Open Directory

12. Search Engine Watch on Kids' Search Engines http://searchenginewatch.com/links/Kids_Search_Engines/

13. Search Engines for Kids, from the High Point Public Library http://www.hipopl.org/dept/library/searchengines.html

14. SearchGov.com http://searchgov.com/

15. TotalNews http://www.totalnews.com/ -- a news search engine

16. X-Refer http://w1.xrefer.com/ -- searches through online reference tools

Does it Matter What Search Engine I Use? What's the Difference

1. How many pages they cover

2. How much within each page they index

3. How they allow you to refine your results -- Google, Go.com, more like this; Northern Lights folders; AltaVista, refine command

4. How they prioritize their results -- collaborative filtering, word frequency and placement, etc.

5. How frequently they update, add or delete links

6. What assumptions they make about multiple words -- AND or OR

7. Special features -- Babelfish, family filter, Northern Light's journal collection, etc.

8. Special purpose - specialized search engines for images or sounds or law or medicine or reference questions or news groups or children's sites

9. the Huh? factor -- sometimes search engines give you answers that leave you scratching your head

General Search Tips

1. Use quotes around words you want to search AS A PHRASE

2. In multiple word searches, put the most important and/or infrequently occurring word first -- most search engines put more weight on the first word in your statement

3. Narrow your search by adding a qualifying term -- "Multiple sclerosis faq", or by searching within results or using whatever refinement techniques the search engine offers, like Northern Light's custom folders, AltaVista's "refine", etc.

4. Pick up further information as you search and use it to alter or refine your search.

Some Database Links

Start with EbscoHost and E-Library, licensed databases of journal articles available for students, faculty and staff at your library's web site:

Clinton Community College students and faculty

http://bridges.eiccd.cc.ia.us/library/ccc.html

Muscatine Community College Library http://bridges.eiccd.cc.ia.us/library/mcc.html

Scott Community College Library http://bridges.eiccd.cc.ia.us/library/scc.html

Free databases, available to anybody::

1. AskERIC http://askeric.org/Eric/ -- or the smaller ERIC/AE full-text library for actual documents http://ericae.net/ftlib.htm

2. FindArticles.com http://www.findarticles.com/PI/index.jhtml

3. MagPortal http://magportal.com/

4. Medline http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/medline.html

5. Medline Plus http://medlineplus.gov/

How Do I Find Out About New Stuff?

1. Internet Resource Newsletter for Higher Education
   http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/irn.html

2. Librarian's Index to the Internet (click on New This Week)
   http://lii.org/

3. Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
   http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html

4. New Electronic Titles from the Government Publication Office
   http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/net/index.html

5. Scout Report (with links to specialized Scout Reports for Business, Social Sciences, and Science) http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sr/current/index.html

Search Engine Experts Links

1. Daily Diffs http://www.dailydiffs.com/dop000rc.htm

2. Debbie Abilock's Guide to matching your question to the best search engine for that purpose http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~debbie/library/research/adviceengine.html

3. Guide to Specialized Search Engines http://www.searchability.com/

4. Search Engine Showdown http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/ -- updates available by e-mail, from Greg Notess

5. Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/ -- updates available by e-mail, from Danny Sullivan

6. Web Search at About.com http://websearch.about.com/ -- updates available by e-mail, from Chris Sherman

Evaluating What You Get: Questions To Ask Any Site

1. Sez who? Who put the pages online? What's their authority?

2. Why are they giving it away for free?

3. Who's the intended audience? Kids? College students? Doctors? Patients? Researchers? Consumers?

4. Is the page straight information, or intended to persuade? Is it neutral or biased?

5. What's the quality of the information?

6. How often is it updated?

7. Does it have an e-mail address to send questions or comments to?

8. Is it gathering information about you, and if so, does it post a privacy policy? Protecting children's privacy is especially important.
   
   
   

   Kids Surfing

   If you're trying to figure out the best way to keep surfing safe for kids, keep in mind that filters are a poor substitute for human judgment. They are primarily concerned with keeping bad stuff out, not looking for quality sites. All the filters will occasionally let offensive stuff slip through, but more often the filters (which will not disclose how and why sites are filtered out) fail by not allowing people to see perfectly inoffensive sites. All the filters seem to have a bias against non-Christian and even mildly liberal viewpoints. To see some of the research on filtering, check out these sites:

   EPIC Report on Family Filter http://www2.epic.org/reports/filter%2Dreport.html and

   About.com's report on AOL's filter http://uspolitics.about.com/newsissues/uspolitics/library/weekly/aa050400a.htm

   What to do instead?

   1. Put the computer in a shared family area where kids' computer use can be monitored

   2. Establish safe surfing rules. Many such sets of rules are available online. Try the ones offered by the FTC at their Kidz Privacy site http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/

   3. Use any of the excellent children's search engines or directories, which search only through good children's sites. You can even set your home screen to the children's site of your choice, whether it's a directory, like Berit's Best Sites for Children http://www.beritsbest.com/(note that it has a privacy policy), or a combination directory and search engine like Yahooligans http://www.yahooligans.com/, or even your public library's children's page.

   4. Surf WITH your kids from time to time so they know you're interested. Comment on what you're seeing -- your kids will get valuable clues about some of your values that you may never have discussed before.
   
   
   

   Updated October 1, 2000