Online Searching and Information Gathering

How-to Guides

Boolean Searching on the Internet

A primer in boolean logic from the University at Albany Libraries

How to Effectively Locate Federal Government Information on the Web

Sherry Dedecker and Patricia Cruse, librarians at the University of California, San Diego have prepared an online interactive tutorial called "How to Effectively Locate Federal Government Information on the Web. Each module has an explanatory section, links to sites, and a set of questions and answers.

Lexis/Nexis Tutorial - From the Johns Hopkins University, for the Academic Universe version

Lexis/Nexis Tutoria - Legal Literature - From the University of Toronto - Ted Tjaden, author..

Using Lexis/Nexis - From SUNY Morrisville, for the Academic Universe version.

Researching Companies Online

A tutorial and a series of pages with recommended sites for obtaining specific kinds of information like telephone numbers, financial information and high-level company information.

Web Search Strategies

A tutorial by Debbie Flanagan, a Houston-based Internet trainer. A good place to start if you are new to Web searching, or if you have never had a systematic introduction to search strategies. Even if you think you already know how to search you may find techniques or tricks you don't know. Very well written, no wasted words here.

Evaluating Web Site Contents

• Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources by Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library
• Evaluating Quality on the Net by Hope N. Tillman, Director of Libraries, Babson College, Babson Park, MA
• How to Critically Analyze Information Sources - Cornell University Library
• Resource Selection and Information Evaluation by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
• Information Quality - WWW Virtual Library by T.M. Ciolek
• Boolean Searching on the Internet - A Primer in Boolean Logic - University at Albany Libraries

Major Search Engines

• Alta Vista - large database, capable of complex search techniques & specialized searches
• Excite - attempts to find concepts related to search terms with "Search for more documents like this one"
• Google - results ranked by "importance" measured by which sites and how many sites link to the page.
• HotBot - complex searches, sophisticated limitation abilities
• Lycos - Home of the Top 5% has been purchased by USA Networks (home shopping network) - expect changes
• Magellan
• PlanetSearch
• Snap
• WebCrawler
• Yahoo!

Specialized Search Engines

Listserv and Newsgroup search engines

• Liszt - Perhaps the largest search engine to find e-mail-based discussion groups, including listserv, majordomo, listproc and others.
• Deja.com - Use Deja.com (was Deja News) to find newsgroups and to search the contents of newsgroups by newsgroup, author, subject, or date
• The Directory of Scholarly and  Professional E-Conferences
  The listservs listed here are primarily populated by professors and grad. students. The lists tend to be focused on particular disciplines and narrow topic areas -- many are closely moderated.
• Reference.COM - Search the contents of newsgroups, web forums and listserv archives (not all listservs are archived and many make archives available only to members).
• TileNet/Lists - Search listservs and other e-mail mailing lists.

People Searches (phonebooks)

• Switchboard - A phonebook with a twist - national listings include e-mail addresses. Search for individuals or businesses. You can change or delete your own listing. Once you've found your party you can find their address on a map, click to send a card or flowers.
• Yahoo! People Search - Search for either e-mail addresses or phonebook information.

Miscellaneous

• AnyWho - Search for People, Business, Toll-Free (800 numbers), and Web Sites, and Reverse Search
• ASE - Airport Search Engine - "ASE searches for airports either by the IATA-identifier or the city. Links to airport homepages are displayed as well.."
• The List - Find an Internet Service Provider (ISP) - search by country or area code.
• News Hunt - "Searching here will return a list of news resources that are searchable, reliable and free."
• Radio Scout - search engine created specifically to do keyword searches of the archives of public radio shows.
• Yahoo! News and Media - Over 50 categories of Journalism Resources
• Yahoo! News - Sources: Reuters, AP and ABCnews, NPR
• Zip Code Lookup (USA Postal Service)

Image Searches

• Alta Vista Photo Finder (also use image:swan to find gif & jpg files on web named swan at AltaVista)
• Arthur (ART media and text HUb and Retrieval System)
• Lycos Image Gallery
• Yahoo! Image Surfer
• Yahoo! News Image Gallery

Software Searches

• Download.com - downloadable commercial software and shareware - software reviews
• Shareware.com - search by platform, database of 250.000 programs

Meta-Search Engines

• Cnet Search.com - Searches 11 engines or choose search by subject category.
• DogPile - Simple and Boolean searches 25 search engines, you choose order.
• go2net - replaces Metacrawler - number and identity of search engines queried unavailable
• Profusion - highly customizable and capable of fairly complex searches - my favorite.

Directories and Portals

• e-Blast - Enyclopedia Britannica's Internet Guide. Reviewed sites, not strictly educational.
• Excite - customizable news, TV listings, movie releases, etc. plus search engine
• HotBot - news, shopping, search, other search engines.
• Lycos - recently purchased by USA Networks (home shopping network) - expect changes
• Netscape Net Center - Subject directory, search with choice of engines, personal info maintenance.

Web Review Services