WebJunction

Objectives

Trainee will be able to:

• Analyze their personal search style and incorporate new search techniques.

• Investigate and evaluate new search engines.

• Use field search features to refine a search.

• Find files and databases in the Invisible Web.

Prerequisites

Proficiency locating Web sites using a variety of search tools.

Duration

50 minutes

Supplies

PowerPoint Show: Advanced Web Searching

Invisible Web-Sample Searches

Training Disk (web_links.htm)

Handouts

What is Your Search Style?

Innovative Search Engines

Restricting Your Search

Invisible Web Resources

What Is Your Search Style?

Estimated time: 10 minutes

 Supply: Index cards

 Handout: What is Your Search Style

On an index card, please write down:

• Your favorite dessert

• Your ideal vacation

• Your favorite author

• Your favorite movie

When you have been searching the Web for a long while, most of us develop habits, both good and bad. It can be useful to periodically evaluate the steps you go through when searching online, and assess which habits are helpful and which habits are the result of being in a rut.

In the Classroom: The Search Style activity can be used as an evaluation to decide if trainees would benefit from the Advanced Web Searching lesson.

Activity: Examining Your Search Style

Follow the instructions on the What is Your Search Style handout to examine your personal search style.

Review Questions

You'll find the answers at the end of the lesson.

1. Did you identify any bad habits that you would like to correct? How will you go about correcting them?

2. What is one search technique you would like to incorporate into your own search style or habits?

Evaluating Search Engines

Estimated time: 15 minutes

 Handout: Innovative Search Engines

It seems like new search engines are announced weekly. The Innovative Search Engines fact sheet contains a list of search engines that are doing something new and innovative. These search engines likely won't replace Google or Yahoo as standard search engines, but they can give you an indication of the features and mechanisms that might become standard in the future.

When you hear about a new search engines, how do you find out if it is high quality, or something that would be useful for you? To evaluating the search tools listed on the handout, use the checklist on the second page of the handout.

Activity: Investigating a New Search Engine

Use the Innovative Search Engines fact sheet to investigate some up and coming search engines.

1. Choose one of the search engines listed on the Beyond the Big 10 fact sheet.

2. Search for Web sites related to your favorite author.

3. Evaluate the search engine using the criteria listed for evaluating search engines.

Review Questions

You'll find the answers at the end of the lesson.

3. What are some ways you can evaluate a new search tool?

4. Are there any search engines on the handout you will recommend to patrons?

Restricting Your Search

Estimated time: 15 minutes

 Handout: Restricting Your Search

Field searching involves restricting your search to specific areas of a Web page, such as only searching titles of Web pages, or only searching a specific domain like .edu. Many search engines offer the option to restrict your search to specific fields from the Advanced Search page, or to enter a field search directly into the search text box on the main page.

This section explains field search options in three common search engines. If you have a favorite search engine, feel free to use this time to investigate the advanced features of your favorite search engine.

Activity: Searching Specific Fields

Find answers to the following questions using a field search from a search engine listed on the Restricting Your Search fact sheet.

1. Abebooks.com is a great Web site for buying used books. Are there other sites like it?

2. I'm looking for Web sites about Ernest Hemingway. I would prefer pages hosted by a university or college Web site.

3. I am looking for information and documents about Medicare that are published by the government.

Review Questions

You'll find the answers at the end of the lesson.

5. What does Google's “In the URL of the Page” option do for your search?

6. What does AltaVista's “By domain” option do for your search?

7. What does AllTheWeb's “Exclude” option do for your search?

8. Is there any information from this exercise you can share with patrons?

Searching the Invisible Web

Estimated time: 10 minutes

 Handout: Invisible Web Resources

 Supply: Invisible Web-Sample Searches

The Invisible Web, also called the “deep Web,” consists of material traditional search engines cannot or will not index. The “visible Web” contains the static html pages indexed by typical search engines. The Invisible Web contains information in free, Web-based databases or information in formats other than html.

These resources can't be found through most search engines because:

• Search engines using crawlers or spiders have a more difficult time finding non-html resources (therefore it is more expensive for search engines).

• Databases require a direct query, whereas search engines collect static, surface Web pages.

Two types of Invisible Web resources are file types and databases. Google is currently the only search engine that indexes file types other than html files. You can limit a search to a particular file type, such as PDF files, or search for all file types in the Google database. To search for a specific files type, such as Adobe PDF files, type your search term(s) plus filetype:pdf in the Google search box. You can choose to view the file as a PDF document, or view a text version of an html version of the file.

When you search for other files types, such as Word documents, you have the option to view the file in html or view a text version.

In addition to file types, web-accessible databases make up the Invisible Web. An increasing number of search engines include searchable databases in order to make the databases easier to find. However, most of the search engines are not actually searching the databases, they just direct you to the main search page of the database.

For example, view the Web site of the American Memory Project from the Library of Congress.

1. Go the Web site http://memory.loc.gov .

2. Click the Search link in the right corner of the page to access the main search page for the American Memory Collection database.

3. Search the database for “Jackie Robinson.” The items you retrieve cannot be found through a search on Google, you can only access them by searching the American Memory Project database.

For accessing information in the Invisible Web, try to build a collection of databases before you need to access them. It is helpful to find relevant databases and build a collection of Favorites. Try to identify likely sources for specific information. Who would compile the information - a company, state government, an advocacy organization? These group's Web sites can provide access to databases invisible to search engines.

In the Real World: If you open a non-HTML file from the Web, you might unwittingly open yourself up to viruses that are embedded in the files. The safe alternative is to always view documents using the "View as HTML" link that Google provides.

Activity: Searching the Invisible Web

Using one of the sites listed on the Invisible Web Resources handout, search for a database containing a movie review of your favorite movie. Was the resource useful? What worked well, and what didn't work? Were there any resources you particularly liked? If you have time, try a search from the Invisible Web-Sample Searches.

In the Classroom: If trainees have problems finding movie reviews, direct them to DirectSearch, Profusion, and the Invisible Web Directory. All these resources provide access to movie review databases.

If You Have Time

Show trainees the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. They cannot add the toolbar to the public profiles on the Gates Library Computer, but they might be interested in adding to the toolbar to their staff computers.

Review Questions

You'll find the answers at the end of the lesson.

9. Is a Web-accessible library catalog part of the Invisible Web? Why or why not?

If You Remember Nothing Else

The advanced search pages of most search engines offer a wealth of options to refine your search. Keep an eye out for new search tools - the most popular search engines used today were barely known a couple years ago!

Additional Resources

Web Search Engines FAQS: Questions, Answers, and Issues

http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/oct01/price.htm

Review Answers

1. Answers will vary.

2. Answers will vary.

3. Methods include:

• Is the site easy to navigate? Are there good visual cues? Is the screen cluttered? Is the user inundated with advertising and flashy marketing?

• Does the search tool use its own spiders or does it rely on other search tool databases?

• Can the search tool be customized to best meet a particular user's needs?

• Are there special features? Is the use of special features intuitive?

• Can you truncate terms?

• Can you use Boolean operators?

• Are advanced field searching options available?

• How are the search results grouped? Can the search results be customized? How is relevancy determined?

• Is there a link to help? Is the help “helpful”? Is the help information suitable for beginning and advanced searchers?

4. Answers will vary.

5. Restricts the search to a term in the Web address (URL) of a Web page.

6. Limits the search to a particular domain, such as only pages with a Web addresses with a top level domain of edu or gov.

7. Removes all Web pages from a specific domain from your search results.

8. Answers will vary.

9. Yes, because a person must search directly in the library catalog, they cannot type the name of the book in Google or another search engine and find out where in the library the book is located.