online web searching
TRANSCRIPT
Online Web SearchingHow to Find and Evaluate
Online Information
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Before You Start1. Analyze your topic to decide where to begin2. Pick the right starting place3. Vary your approach4. Don’t bog down with strategy that doesn’t
work5. Return to previous strategies better
informed
(give 1st handout)
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Search ToolsSearch EnginesSubject DirectoriesMeta-Search EnginesInvisible Web
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Search EnginesGoogle is currently the most used search engine. It has
the largest database of Web pages. Google’s ‘popularity’ ranking often places worthwhile pages near the top of the search results. However not everything on the Web is fully searchable in Google. So, if you can’t find what you are looking for in Google, try…
Yahoo Search is a HUGE site. Claims over 20 billion total ‘web objects’
Exalead a big site claiming over 8 billion searchable pages.
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
How Do Search Engines Work?Search engines do not really search the World Wide Web directly.
Each searches a database of web pages that it has harvested and cached. The databases are selected and built by computer robot programs called spiders. These ‘crawl’ the web looking for pages for potential inclusion by following links on pages already in the database. [If a web page is never linked from any other page, search engine spiders cannot find it].
Once the page is found it is passed on to another program for ‘indexing’. This program identifies the text, links, and other content in the page and stores it in the search engine database’s files to that the database can be searched by keyword and whatever more advanced approaches are offered, and the page will be found if your search matches its content.
(give 2nd handout)
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Subject DirectoriesIPL2 over 40,000 highest quality sites only. IPL2 formed by a
merger of the Librarians’ Internet Index and the Internet Public Library
Infomine over 125,00 useful, reliable annotations. Compiled by academic librarians form the University of California and elsewhere.
About.com over 2 million generally good annotations compiled by ‘guides’ with various levels of expertise.
Google Directory about 5 million selected by the ODP and enhanced by Google searching and ranking.
Yahoo about 4 million. Very short descriptions. Often used for popular and commercial topics.Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley
Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Meta-Search EngineYippyDogpileSurfwaxCopernic
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Try a Custom Search EngineCustom Search Engine.Com a large number and variety of custom search engines. Easy to use. Searchable. Most have brief descriptions.
Invisible Web AKA Deep WebThe ‘visible’ web is what you can find using general web
search engines and some subject directories.The ‘invisible’ web is what you can’t find using these tools.Some ‘invisible’ material includes:
Contents of searchable databases (the computer bots and crawlers can’t enter passwords or complete a search box).
Excluded pages (i.e. library catalog searches, public-record databases, or pages excluded by their owners).
To find out more check out the Wikipedia article on the ‘deep web’
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Why Evaluate the WebThe World Wide Web can be a great place to accomplish
research on many topics. But putting documents or pages on the web is easy, cheap or free, unregulated, and unmonitored (at least in the USA). There is a famous Steiner cartoon published in the New Yorker (July 5, 1993) with two dogs sitting before a terminal looking at a computer screen; one says to the other "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." The great wealth that the Internet has brought to so much of society is the ability for people to express themselves, find one another, exchange ideas, discover possible peers worldwide they never would have otherwise met, and, through hypertext links in web pages, suggest so many other people's ideas and personalities to anyone who comes and clicks. There are some real "dogs" out there, but there's also great treasure.
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
The RationaleTherein lies the rationale for evaluating carefully whatever you
find on the Web. The burden is on you - the reader - to establish the validity, authorship, timeliness, and integrity of what you find. Documents can easily be copied and falsified or copied with omissions and errors -- intentional or accidental. In the general World Wide Web there are no editors (unlike most print publications) to proofread and "send it back" or "reject it" until it meets the standards of a publishing house's reputation. Most pages found in general search engines for the web are self-published or published by businesses small and large with motives to get you to buy something or believe a point of view. Even within university and library web sites, there can be many pages that the institution does not try to oversee. The web needs to be free like that!! And you, if you want to use it for serious research, need to cultivate the habit of healthy skepticism, of questioning everything you find with critical thinking.
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Evaluating Web PagesThink CriticallyThink SuspiciouslyQuestion what you findQuestion who is providing the information
and why
(give 3rd handout)
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Questions to AskIs this someone’s personal web page?What type domain does it come from?Who published the page?Does this entity make sense?Who wrote the page?What are the author’s credentials?Is it dated and is that date current?
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
More QuestionsAre sources documented with footnotes or
links?Are there links to other resources on the
topic?What other sites link to this page? (use
alexa.com to check)
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Still More QuestionsWhy was the page put on the web?Is it ironic? Satire or Parody?Is this as credible or useful as resources in
print or online through the library?
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Some ExamplesBacon UnwrappedCancer StoryMelanoma treatmentMerck Manual
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
Questions
Information in this presentation taken from the University of California at Berkeley Finding Information on the Internet: a Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
ResourcesFinding Information on the Internet: A
Tutorial http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html
John’s Hopkins University http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/
Wikipedia “Deep Web” article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web