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Information needed |
Search strategy |
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I need a few
good hits fast. |
Google returns important, relevant hits quickly (pages are
cached), with terms matched in close proximity and bolded in the
results. Decides importance and value based on pages that link to that
page. |
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I have an general idea
of a broad academic subject and need to explore and focus it. |
Search a subject "tree"
by clicking down from broad to specific topics.
Infomine - high-quality, scholarly
sites selected by librarians, suggests related terms to search
Librarians' Index to the Internet - "a
thinking person's Yahoo"¹
Northern Lights
² organizes results into folders to
help you refine your idea (e.g. pollution = air? water? light?
noise?), or to choose the correct meaning (e.g.. dolphins =
animal? sports team?). |
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I have an general idea
of a popular or commercial topic and need to explore and focus
it. |
Yahoo a "tree" with sites submitted by users
GO a "tree" with sites reviewed by
editors, updateable by Infoseek Web Search |
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I have general
keyword(s) and need help refining my search
strategy. |
HotBot SuperSearch's template helps you
create a Boolean or phrase search, or coaches you in ways to define your
search (by media type, programming language, geographic location,
personal name and date).
Excite suggests a list of words to refine or refocus your
first search term. When you find a right-on result, choose "search for
more documents like this one" to retrieve related results.
Altavista suggests that you choose from
a list of phrase searches at the top of your single-word results page. |
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I bet this search has
been done before. |
Ask Jeeves! has prepared answers to
common questions - ask in natural language. Results include search hits
from four engines at bottom of page.
Direct Hit calls itself a "popularity
engine" because it ranks your results based on the results other
searchers have chosen. |
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I need quality,
evaluated links from a subject expert. |
Search selective,
up-to-date pathfinder guides created by specialist-librarians:
AlphaSearch and
WWW Virtual Library search or browse
full-text documents, databases and gateways organized by disciplines.
New Athenaeum "guide of guides" all
languages (estimates reading level).
Argus Clearinghouse
(librarian/academic) and
About.com (popular/commercial)
evaluated subject guides.
BUBL LINK- organized by Dewey number
(European focus) |
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I need balanced
information from verified sources for a school research
project to take home. |
Nueva's
Library catalog
collects resources for the school's curriculum. |
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I want to search on
often-ignored words in a phrase (e.g. "Vitamin A" or "to
be or not to be"). |
Infoseek includes little words (such as a, to,
be, not )as part of a search. |
|
I need to do a
pinpoint search - I've got a unique phrase or keyword. |
AltaVista - massive and fast indexer of
full text, good for unique word or phrase (Himalayan cat not
cat). Ask your question followed by a "?" and you will
receive prepared answers from the Ask Jeeves database. |
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I need information on a
proper name (a place, person, or object). |
AltaVista and
Infoseek search with capital letters to
force an exact case match on the entire word (e.g. Al Gore and NeXT)
A person search on
HotBot SuperSearch will retrieve the
name in both reversed and normal order (e.g. Picasso, Pablo and Pablo
Picasso) |
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I need
biographical information. |
Biographical Dictionary - quick
identification of a name.
Biography.com - database of 20,000
paragraph-length biographies.
Lives links to biographies,
autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, narratives, oral histories,
links to
collections by profession, region, era. |
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I need a
company's Web site. |
1Jump directly to 1,000,000 company Web sites in the world
using company name, brand name, stock ticker symbols, name of an
executive or employee, geographic terms (ZIP, postal, area code, city
name) |
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I need US
government information. |
FedWorld allows browsing government
databases or Web sites, and keyword searches on government Web pages or
reports. |
|
I need
hard-to-find or late-breaking information. |
Inference Find a "metasearch engine" which queries the
indexes of many remote search engine services simultaneously and is more
likely to locate rare or very recent information not yet widely indexed.
YahooNews updates continuously from
newswires and once a day from other sources - includes "full coverage"
option for hot topics.
Northern Lights Current News
continually updates headlines, weather, and sports, can search the past
two weeks. |
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I need current
information from magazine or newspaper articles. |
ProQuest Direct has full text of over
450 magazines and newspapers and can be searched from school or home.
(Get password from Library).
AJR NewsLink links to newspapers and
magazines, mainly US and Canada.
News Directory links to online English language media
worldwide.
TotalNEWS and
Northern Lights search current news
UnCover database of current article
information taken from over 18,000 multidisciplinary journals may be
searched free, but charge for delivery of full-text. |
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I need accurate,
objective information on hot topics. |
BIOTN compiled by librarians at a
Catholic university about controversial current events issues (e.g. gun
control, human rights, censorship).
GO selected information on global hot
spots, political and social issues, updateable by Infoseek Web search |
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I need statistical
data. |
Nueva Library has a
Statistical Information help page. |
|
Is there almanac-type
information on the Internet? |
Information Please (almanac facts)CIA
World Factbook (country facts) |
|
I need primary
sources. |
Online
Digital Library links
US focus:
American Memory,
U.S. History,
California Heritage
Ancient focus:
Perseus Project, |
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I need images and
sounds (photos, art, designs, logos, videos, music, noises),
media types (Java, VRML) or file extensions (.gif ) |
ditto.com
editors choose high-quality, useful, non-objectionable pictures that can
be searched or browsed.
The Amazing Picture Machine (NCREL)
small database of pictures suitable for education
American Memory US historical images
and sounds may be searched by original format (maps, motion pictures,
photos and prints, sound recordings) or digital format.
AltaVista
Photo Finder searches17 million images,
audio clips
and video files from the web and private collections.
HotBot: SuperSearch template has
options for media type |
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I need a map. |
TIGER Map Service, a digital map
database sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, suitable for Web
pages.
National Geographic
Map Machine - country, physical and
political maps, star charts - printable
MapQuest interactive mapping service to
find locations worldwide, obtain driving directions, overlay places of
interest
Cartography Links |
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I need a
quotation. |
The Quotations Page
Quoteland
Quotations Archive,
Search Creative Quotations,
Bartlett (©1901) |
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I want to get advice
and opinions from others. |
AskA+
links to selected experts determined to be authoritative, non-commercial
and suitable for K-12 digital reference service
Pitsco's Ask an Expert volunteers with
varying levels of expertise
Deja.com searches archives of Usenet posts
Join a discussion group on a topic (Liszt) |
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I need a virtual
librarian. |
KidsConnect,
Internet Public Library Reference,
Debbie,
Marilyn |
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I've got a good
search to rerun automatically. |
The
Informant save your favorite search
engine queries and web sites, and send you email when results change.
Excite's NewsTracker tracks your news
topic, refining the search based on results. |
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I want to see sites
just for kids. |
Yahooligans! |
|
Miscellaneous Search
Engines |
MetaCrawler |
