As the Web gets larger and more complex, searching for information becomes more daunting, even for experienced users. Here are some aids recommended by information professionals to make Web searches more productive.

"Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial"

http://lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

Excellent introduction to Web searching basics; materials come from the University of California, Berkeley Teaching Library's Internet Workshops series.

"Search Engine Showdown" by Greg Notess, Reference Librarian & Associate Professor, Montana State University-Bozeman library

http://www.imt.net/~notess/search/

Summarizes, reviews, and compares the search features and database scope of Web search engines and finding aids.

"Search Tools Chart"

http://infopeople.berkeley.edu:8000/src/chart.html

Summarizes search options used in some of the most popular Web search
sites.

"Search Engine Reviews Chart"

http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/reports/reviewchart.html

Compares how search engines have scored in various reviews. Published on Danny Sullivan's "Search Engine Watch" Web site, which contains links to other search engine resources at http://searchenginewatch.com/

Also see:

"Aristotle"

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/Aristotle.htm

Project Aristotle(sm): Automated Categorization of Web Resources, projects, research, products and services

Some tips for explorers

• Use more than one search engine for extensive searches. Search engines generally have little overlap in coverage.
• Rare words are often easy to find if you don't add very general ideas to them in the same query. Try searching for the rare term first. If too many pages come back, then add other concepts to the query.
• Use AltaVista for finding foreign sites and information in foreign languages. While their translation feature may not be robust enough to try on Shakespeare, it does return a nice approximation of the original, unless you have idioms involved.
• Use Northern Light for subject searches. They seem to find useful information quickly on both the Web and in their special collection of journals, and you can't beat the price. Navigation using custom folders makes the service easy to use.
• Use HotBot if you need a specific format, date, or field within a document such as the title or the URL.
• Use a metasearch engine to give you a quick overview of what might become a very broad search with many returns. Metasearch engines have one major drawback. They do not return enough information to make a considered decision of whether to view a page. Titles alone do not suffice usually.
• Use "More Like This" on Excite to refine a search.
• Shorten a URL if you get a broken link. Then use the features of the site to find the page you seek.
• Don't let the numbers of results fool you: Each search service has its own idiosyncratic way of figuring out how many pages relate to a query.Some add all pages which have at least one of the query words. Others seem to limit that number or to list only those which include all the concepts.
• Product reviews, particularly for computer-related equipment, are easy to find on the Web. Ask Jeeves often lists the best sites for reviews of various products.
• Find and use synonyms for your most important concept. If you use only one term for your most important concept, and then use many synonyms for less vital aspects, you can skew the weighting of the query away from the most important term.
• Know the default parameters of the site: AND or OR?
• Ignore false drops. Don't waste time wondering why the German/English Running Dictionary showed up in the search on the effect on jet lag of shining a light behind the knee.
• Stick to a few search engines which work best for you. Knowing how to use them well will save searching time.

Source: Susan Feldman, Datasource, EBSCO-Online

Finding it

to find an e-journal I use the ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ACCESS COLORADO ALLIANCE OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES at http://www.coalliance.org/ejournal/

finding almost any journal, paperbased or electronic goes best using www.publist.com

For a book I go to www.amazon.com

For people, institutes or specific searches I use a mixture of the search engines mentioned above.

Joop van Schie