Computers in Libraries 07, Wednesday

Mary Ellen Bates, “30 Search Tips.” (A301)

1. Simply Google
1. Overview of all of Google’s features, sites, downloads, etc.
2. http://www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm
2. askx.com
1. ask.com’s new interface
2. left column stays same with search suggestions.
3. Middle is your search results
4. Right column is quick views, pictures, etc.
3. Searchtheweb2.com
1. Can list by popularity or by long tail
4. Google search history
1. Can limit search to what searched before
2. Google.com/searchhistory
3. Can turn search history on and off
5. consider the Q&A services
1. answers.yahoo.com
2. qna.live.com
3. askville.ask.com
4. linkedin.com/answers
5. Use all with caution!
6. use search engine’s quick-answer features
1. ask.com’s smart answers
2. google’s onebox
3. yahoo’s shortcuts
4. MSN/live.com’s instant answers
7. Squidoo
1. blog on steroids
2. makes a more interactive with polls, etc. into you blog.
8. build your own search engines
1. rollyo.com
2. yahoo search builder
3. google co-coop
4. live.com’s macros
5. gigablast’s custom topic search
6. – can add to your website to get students to you Google your way
9. Yahoo search subscriptions
1. Searches periodicals, but a pay-as-you-go.
2. Search.yahoo.com/subscriptions
10. Kosmix.com
1. Is a vertical search engine that gives search results in clusters and related topics
2. Has for politics, finance, and health/medicine, and a few others
11. NationMaster.com
1. Datamining tool covering data from NGO’s.
2. It is also a data visualization tool; it makes charts out of data from reports so it is easier to read/understand.
12. Yahoo’s mindset feature
1. Mindset.research.yahoo.com
2. It has a slide to show where you are between researching and shopping.
13. MSN’s cool synonym-suggestion tool
1. Snurl.com/zqyd
2. Intended to help advertisers find search terms to advertise
3. Is great for finding other terms to search by
14. MSN’s misspelling-suggestion engine
1. Snurl.com/zqyl
2. Gives the most common misspellings of a word
15. Consider 37signals.com
1. Great collaborative resources
2. Does project management, to-do lists, file sharing, time slips, etc.
16. Ask.com’s maps
1. Gives driving AND walking directions
2. Takes topography into accont
3. Maps.ask.com
17. use Exalead’s NEAR/n operater
1. (solar OR sun) NEAR/3 power
18. Live.com’s academic search
1. Academic.live.com
2. Great results page
3. Slider bar for verbosity
4. Endless scroll of results
5. Many search options
19. Compare search engines
1. Comparesearchengines.dogpile.com
2. Jux2
3. Ranking.thumbshots.com
4. Twingine.com
1. Don’t use for searching, but use for evaluating and for graphic representation of search engine coverage (and lack of overlap).

20. Data visualization arrives to the value-added online services
1. Factiva’s discovery pane in Search 2.0
21. Touchgraph
1. Finds relationships among URLs
2. Uses Google’s “similar pages” function
2. Finds related books in Amazon by using subject terms.

21. Gigablast
1. Limit to multiple sites
2. Gigabits clustering
3. Great complex searching and ranking tools
1. Have to use the “Help” file for syntax

2. Snap search
1. Snap.com
2. It gives a preview of links in second frame
3. Has a firefox plugin
3. GooFresh
1. Limits google searches to only sites updated or added recently
2. From Tara Galishain
3. www.researchbuzz.org/2003/09/goofresh.shtml
4. check out podcast lectures:
1. Yale
2. Princeton
3. UC Berkeley
4. Stanford
5. Johns Hopkins
6. And others (and there is/are podcast search engine)
5. SearchMash
1. New interface for google
2. Does regular search, as well as images, blogs, and videos searches
3. When do “more results” it adds the next 10 to your screen
6. Google’s topic search
1. Google.com/coop/topics/?show=all
2. Information pros can add to it and make it better
3. Searching in it limits what you want to do with the results
7. Pagebull
1. Metasearch tool
2. Entirely visual (screen shots of all search results)
3. Good for right-brained searchers
8. Google’s librarian center
1. Blog, newsletter, and teaching tools
2. Tips of the trade
3. Librariancentral.blogspot.com
9. OneLook
1. Reverse dictionary
2. Onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
3. You enter your definition and it says what words it might be.