Power Searching Workshop

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1. Rationale

• The changing job: Engineering Learning Environments (Dylan Wiliam)
• E-mail forwards
• The possibility of bad info - just because it's everywhere doesn't mean it's true
• Search engine limitations - what can search engines find?
• Search engine limitations - what percent of the www does it search?
• Human limitations - how many hits can you look through?

2. A Good Start

• E-mail forwards and virus scares
• E-mail forwards - possibly more dangerous than viruses!
• Always check before you forward
  • www.snopes.com - Urban legends and hoax information
  • urbanlegends.about.com/ More urban legends and hoax info
  • www.vmyths.com - Good virus and virus hoax information

3. To Google or Not To Google

• How do search engines work?
• How does Google rank sites?
• What won't search engines find?

4. Gateways to the Invisible Web

• Databases and documents are not indexed by search engines
• Therefore you must go to specific gateways to find them:
  • www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html - The Library of Congress Digital Collections
  • www.digital-librarian.com
  • www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm
  • infomine.ucr.edu - Scholarly Internet Resource Collections
  • lii.org - Librarians Index to the Internet
  • www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html - Pinakes Subject Launchpad
  • vlib.org - The WWW Virtual Library
  • www.umasd.org/hs/library/library.htm UM Library/Media Center site

5. General Reference Sites

• Watch out for incorrect quotes, and quotes wrongly attributed
• There are dictionaries, thesauruses, quote books and more online
  • www.ipl.org - The Internet Public Library
  • en.wikipedia.org - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (wiki = written by users, monitored by owners)
  • www.bartleby.com - Dictionary, Thesaurus, Quotations, etc.
  • www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html - Common Errors in English
  • hypertextbook.com/facts/index-topics.shtml - The Physics Factbook; numbers for just about anything
  • www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html - The CIA World Factbook
  • turnbull.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/index.html - The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive: Biographies of scientists and mathematicians
  • factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en - US Census Bureau Factfinder
  • http://www.fedstats.gov/ - Fedstats - searches multiple agencies for data

6. Subject Specific Gateways and Search Engines

• There are many gateways and search engines that are subject specific
  • www.archive.org - The Internet Archive
  • www.imdb.com - The Internet Movie Database
  • www.kbb.com - Kelley Blue Book
  • Librivox.org - Free audio books
  • vos.ucsb.edu - Humanities Research
  • www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ - Free online books from Project Gutenberg
  • web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh - The World Lecture Hall; courses, notes, syllabi and more for many online college courses
  • http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ - Medline Plus from the National Institutes of Health

7. Digital Imagery and Copyright

• The Fair Use School of Thought
  • Copyright chart from The California Student Media Festival
  • Copyright and Fair Use Guide by Cathy Newsome
  • Fair Use Overview from Stanford University Libraries
• The "Transformative Use" School of Thought
  • Guide to Best Practices (pdf) from American University's Center for Social Media
  • Frequently Asked Questions from American University's Center for Social Media
• What the Library of Congress has to say:
  • Fair Use Factsheet

8. Digital Image Collections

• Make sure to check for copyright restrictions!
• These are all copyright free or copyright friendly
  • www.phillyhistory.org - Philly History Photo Archive
  • dayton.hq.nasa.gov - NASA's Great Images Archive
  • nix.nasa.gov - NASA Image Exchange
  • www.flickr.com/photos/Library_of_Congress - Library of Congress Flickr page
  • www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html - Library of Congress Print & Online Catalog
  • Dover copyright-free clipart on CD-ROM; you can also sign up for free weekly samples
  • www.pics4learning.com - Image library for teachers and students
  • http://www.pdphoto.org/index.php - Free Public Domain Photo Database; thousands of royalty free pictures here.
  • www.yourchildlearns.com/map-puzzles.htm - Interactive Maps and Map Puzzles
  • images.fws.gov - US Fish & Wildlife Services Digital Library

9. Searching with Confidence

• Search syntax: AND/OR and exact phrases
• Site-specific searches on Google
• What to do before you search
• What to do if you turn up thousands of hits
• What to do if you turn up no hits
• What to do if the search engine finds it, but the page isn't there any more
• Making sure you'll always have what you want once you find it

10. The Credibility Check

• Just because it's on www.anyonecanputupawebsite.com doesn't mean it's true
• TLDs: .com .edu .gov .net .uk .ru .de etc.
• Going up a level and poking around - what kind of a site is it?
• No guarantees, but: Is the grammar good? Is the tone appropriate? Is the information accurate?
• Watch out for personal home pages and sites with information contributed by users