3. Articulate what you need.
I need information on the Meiji period in Japanese
history, including dates, major players, main facts
and comparisons
Primary Secondary Also rans
Meiji People Global impact
Japan Activities Comparisons
Historical Determinants
period
Ask Jeeves; Bertie
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4. So where do we start?
Ground floor foundations
MS student
Encarta (see search example)
World Book
www.mooter.com
http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
BUBL (www.bubl.ac.uk) (dewey decimal system)
Yahoo
Wikipedia
Galaxy (national library of medicine)
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5. What’s really new?
Go for the latest and greatest
RSS feeds
Pluck
Etc.
Podcasts
Graylit networks
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6. So let’s Google better.
Describe your search as completely as possible to
narrow -- don’t capitalize, Google is case insensitive.
(eg. a search for carnivore obtains a game, a type of animal
and an FBI program, so specify your term)
Add quotes to limit search to those sites with this
specific phrase: “history of chocolate”
Limit search to specific sites or file types:
“history of chocolate” -.com filetype:ppt site:edu
Most search
+ to include; - to exclude (no spaces) engines have an
advanced search
similar to Google’s
Go see William
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the conker (er)
7. Boolean Logic for Searches
AND -- This is assumed by Google. No need to add it
in. To be or
eg. Chocolate AND cadbury = chocolate cadbury not to be…
OR -- finds either term =chocolate OR cadbury
Stemming now works! Still use your wildcards:
whole words only; * = any word
Nested Boolean Searches
chocolate AND [diet OR health]
Don’t discard spelling errors
Try doing it double! Stop words
internet internet
I, a, the, of. etc.
Put them in quotes.
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8. Narrowing the search even further.
Special Syntax
filetype:
intitle: Date Range
allintitle: •Remember it’s in Julian
site: There are many
intitle & site: (combo) converters available,
don’t worry…
intext: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/da
related: ta/docs/JulianDate.html
For the maths dept only:
site:com site:edu assumes an
AND. Use this to make it OR
something (site:edu | site:com)
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9. Directories
When you go to the library, you have:
subject, author, title, etc, searches.
Mostly you stick to „subject‟.
That‟s what you can do with Google too.
The Directory describes the whole
web site, so the result is a reduced
subject specific search.
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10. Remember this about Google
Advertising, you can pay to have sites
ranked at the top
Results listing is not accurate; it is transitory
Will not show more than 1000 results per search
Will not search more than ten words in search box
use your wild cards here, they don’t count
Won’t show more than two results per site
Google gives its highest rating to sites that have
lots of links from other sites.
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11. So why bother with anything else?
Unseen WEB – Google doesn’t get to everything
You may need to use other engines in conjunction
Ephemeral stuff
Use Google’s cache option
Gray literature
Academic papers committee reports journals
Conference papers corporate docs trade papers
http://graylit.osti.gov
http://adt.caul.edu.au
www.slnsw.gov.au
http://www.nla.gov.au
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12. So why bother with anything else?
Quality, specific Information –
demands better searching skills
Nature of Structured Documents
Advanced Search Training
Sometimes you are looking for a more obscure site
You may be searching a material type that another
search engine will do better
chance… all search engines search
a slightly different database - you
just might be luckier with another!
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14. Some more cool stuff
Google Labs – the coolest feature of all
Google calculates!
Calculate in words Try converting Celsius
Google defines to Fahrenheit and more
Google translates
Look up the news
Where to get pictures
Speak: Try the definitions search box for
Swedish chef
maths or irrational number
Elmer Fudd
Klingon teacher
Go shopping with Froogle or catalogues
Give the sets a go
Join a group (ok, this is daggy but some people like it)
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19. Sample searches
william the conquorer
Incorrect spelling but still 140 results
william the conqueror
Better but now 142,000 results
“william the conqueror”
Even better now only 79,600
“william the conqueror” site:edu
More educational and only 2,800 results
"william the conqueror" site:edu from the directory
Now really focused and only 321 results
"william the conqueror" site:edu filetype:ppt
Now seriously focused and only 38 results
Feeling really lucky? Use the button: results =1
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