Library Guides:    Recommended Search Engines and Searching Techniques

Developed by Kathie Lewis and Gina Haycock, Librarians

Recommended General Search Engines/   Search Engines by Subject/  Invisible Web/   Keyword Searching/    Boolean Operators/   Searching Techniques/   Possible Assignments

Definition of Search Engine:

Recommended General Search Engines:

Clusty
    http://clusty.com

General Description:  Using a keyword search, Clusty provides results from multiple sources. On the left hand side of the screen Clusty organizes the results into topical clusters. Clusty uses standard Boolean operators and searching techniques. This is a meta-search engine.

Sample Search: 

Best Features:  Clusty has four excellent features.
    1. It provides you with an excerpt from the web site that helps describe it.
    2. The drop down menu in the left hand corner will divide all the web sites by their domains. The viewer can see which sites are .gov, .edu, .com, and .net.
    3. The major topic is grouped into folders of sub-topics, making the topic easier to explore.
    4. The news tab allows the viewer to search the latest news by topic as well as breaking down the topics and the news stories into
         topical folders.
      

KartOO
    http://www.kartoo.com/

General Description: Using keywords and Boolean operators, KartOO searches several search engines at once and brings back the results in the form of an interactive map. It is similar to Clusty in that it arranges topics by folders on the left hand side of the screen, however it does not let the viewer arrange the sites by domain.

Sample Search:

Best Features: 
    1. The major topic is grouped into folders of sub-topics, making the topic easier to explore.
    2. This search engine provides a visual map that taps into a different learning style.
    3. This search engine does allow for natural language searching. Type your search in the form of a question and be sure to include the
         question mark (?). Kartoo interrogates the most high-performing engines in natural language and displays the map of the results.

Librarian's Internet Index
     http://lii.org

General Description:  Although this is much smaller than Yahoo or Google, it is maintained by librarians and every web site has been evaluated. It does not "crawl" the web but searches its own collection of over tens of thousands of web sites, covering 13 main topics and over 300 related topics.

Sample Search:

Best Features: 
    1.  All the web sites are selected by librarians for their quality and use in research by students.
    2.  Maintains an excellent Directory of subjects.
     3. A summary is given for each web site.

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Subject Specific Search Engines

HealthLine
  http://www.healthline.com

General Description:  Healthline is solely dedicated to finding medical information online, and it offers medically filtered results developed by trained medical personnel.

Sample Search:

Best Features:  All the websites included in this search engine have been selected by trained, medical personnel.

Biology Browser:
    http://www.biologybrowser.org

General Description: BiologyBrowser, produced by BIOSIS, is a free web site offering resources for the life sciences information community.

SCIRUS:
    http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/

General Description: Scirus covers a wide variety of subjects in the field of science. It is useful for topics on the environment, oil and the middle east, health and more.

Best Features:
    1. Finds the latest reports, pre-reviewed articles, pre prints and journals that can't be found using general search engines.
    2. Covers over 250 million web pages, including things on the invisible web.

GPO Access:
    http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html

General Description: Access to almost everything the United States Government has to offer through the Internet.

Best Features:
    1. An excellent topic search that is divided by types of government resources.

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Beyond Search Engines: The Invisible Web

Definition of Invisible Web:

Proprietary Databases are one part of the invisible web. Usually these databases require a paid subscription. The COS Library periodical databases such as InfoTrac and Academic Abstracts are examples of proprietary databases. Sometimes the site may be password-protected for members only of an organization. Sometimes the site may offer free searching, but  registration is required; often newspaper sites require registration.
General search engines don't necessarily search file formats such as .PDF, audio, video, or images, so information in these formats also become part of the invisible web.
Database-driven  web sites are also part of the invisible web. An example of the this type of database is ERIC (Department of Education database) where the information only becomes available after a search is done at that particular site. Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet, a database accessing major legislation, the Congressional Record, committee information and historical documents,  and  The Internet Movie Database
are other examples.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The above information on the Invisible Web was taken from the following:

Clyde, Anne. "The Invisible Web" Teacher Librarian. April 2002.
          http://www.teacherlibrarian.com/pages/infotech29_4.html (25 Sept. 2003).

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Keyword Searching

Each Search Engine will have some unique features for searching, however, key word searching and Boolean Operators are used by virtually every search engine. The following tips are for the basic searching techniques. Go to the help section of each search engine for more detailed information on the best ways to search that engine.

Most search engines do not bring good results when the searcher types in a full question or sentence fragment. It responds much better to key word searching.

 Example 1:   Has space exploration brought many benefits to the public?

                      Key words would be “space exploration” and benefits

 Example 2:   Should animals be used in medical experiments?

                     Key words would be  animals and medical and experiments

The more words the searcher uses in the search query the smaller number of search results. Sometimes the searcher will see a need to broaden their search, change the search terms he/she is using, or add more terms to narrow the results.

Truncation: Key words may be truncated to the root word in order to find all forms of that word. This can be very useful in creating a more effective search query.
            Example:    educat*  will find education, educated, educating, educate

Wildcards: A symbol that is used to replace one letter in a word.

Example:  Wom?n  will return articles with the words women or woman

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Boolean Operators

            Keyword searching uses Boolean Operators to link the search terms together. The Boolean operator you will use most often is AND.

The Boolean Operator AND means that the terms connected by it must be in the search results.  In Example 1 I decided that my keywords were space exploration and benefits so my search query would be    “space exploration” and benefits

    This helps to ensure that those terms would have to be in the entry or the computer would not return it to me.

OR is another Boolean Operator. It is used when you have two words that mean the same thing and you want to find all the sites regardless of which term it uses.

Examples:    babies or infants
                    Elderly or aged
                   “Native Americans” or “American Indians”

 When an OR search is combined with an AND search the OR search must be placed in parentheses ( ). This separates the searches for the computer.

 Examples:  (babies or infants) and poverty and health
                  Abuse and (elderly or aged)

The Boolean Operator NOT eliminates terms. This is useful when a term can divergent meanings.

Example:   behavior and (dolphins not football)

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Searching Techniques

Finding specific types of Information:
        One way of narrowing the search to higher quality web sites is to include a particular type of web site or format that the information is to come in. This can also help the searcher find things on the invisible web.

Examples:      poverty and "think tanks"
                     poverty and "policy papers"
                     poverty and "journal articles"
                     medical and databases

Using Directories:
     Making use of a search engine's directory often helps to focus the topic as well as bring up a set of higher quality results.
1. Perform a key word search within the search directory or click on the general topics and follow along as the directory explores the topic.

Example:

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Possible Assignments:

1. Using the research questions given below, turn them into search queries.
      Example: 
                Research question: Does using marijuana help control pain?
                Search Query:    marijuana and (control or manage) and pain

Research Questions:
        Should the mentally retarded receive the death penalty?
        Should the federal government fund sex education in public schools?
        Should teens be able to get cosmetic surgery?
        Are Americans obsessed with following the lives of celebrities?
        How will drilling for oil affect the Artic Wildlife Refuge?
        Should dolphins be trained for dangerous military jobs?
        Is childhood obesity becoming an epidemic?
        How can you prevent identity theft?
        Is the United States prepared for a possible avian flu epidemic?
        Would raising the minimum wage reduce poverty?

2. Part of creating efficient search queries is thinking of terms for similar concepts. Come up with similar terms to the ones given.
        Example:
               Elderly:    Aged, Senior Citizens

        Babies
        Hispanics
        firearms
        prevent
        cosmetic surgery
        teenagers

3. Using phrases correctly.  Students often become confused about what a phrase really is and begin using sentence fragments or single words as phrases.
    Place quote marks around proper phrases.
        Example:    Nuclear Waste:       "Nuclear Waste"

        Prevent cancer
        Birth control
        Doping
        Drug abuse
        National Cancer Association
        Listening to the radio
        prevent identity theft
        cosmetic surgery
        minimum wage
        guns

4. Truncate the following words and list all forms of the word that might appear.
        Example:   Education      Educat*   education, educate, educating, educated

        Evaluate
        pollute
        teenager
        science

5. Create your research question and search query.   Using a search engine locate a web site and then use the databases to locate an article. Compare the results.
        Example: How can you prevent identity theft?       "identity theft" and prevent*

    http://help.unc.edu/?id=1552   Great security practices dictate that passwords should be changed regularly to protect you from identity theft and prevent unauthorized use. ...

    Database:  Academic Abstracts
    Title of Journal:   Money,  May 2006
    Title of Article: ID Theft: Are You the Next Victim?
    Summary: This article tests your knowledge, with multiple choice questions, on protecting yourself from identity theft. The questions asked cover how much money victims typically lose and the most common ways that identities are stolen. The article also explains the kinds of identity theft that are the most difficult to detect and what age groups are the most susceptible.

6. Create your research question and search query. Locate two web sites that address your search query and evaluate them. Use this site as your evaluating guide.

7. Create your research question and search query. Use the key word features of a search engine to locate a web site that discusses your topic and then use the Directory of Google, Yahoo, or Librarians Internet Index to locate a web site that discusses your topic. Write a short essay comparing and contrasting the quality and usefulness or the two methods.

8. Read the following topics of information and decide whether it would be MORE efficient to use the Internet or a database to locate higher quality information on that topic.

        1. The basic facts of a disease.                                                              Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        2. What organizations are affiliated with this topic?                                 Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        3. A discussion of the Americanization of the Middle East.                     Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        4. The latest news concerning the war in Iraq.                                        Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        5. The political platforms of various parties.                                           Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        6. An in-depth discussion of a political party's platform.                         Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        7. Locate several articles of literary criticism on John Steinbeck.            Internet         Database     Both would be efficient
        8. Locate a peer reviewed article on the topic of global warming.          Internet         Database     Both would be efficient

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This page was created April, 2006. This page was last updated06/13/2008
For questions and comments, please mail to: kathiel@cos.edu  or ginah@cos.edu