Searching For Information
On the Internet
Using the internet is like looking for a book in
a library with no shelves and no call numbers. You know that what you
need is there somehwere; but where? Fortunately, there are a few tools
in cyberspace that are designed to help you find what you're looking
for.
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A
California State University Dominguez Hills PT3 Project
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- Search
Tutorial
- If you don't have a clue how to begin looking
for something on the Internet, this site will help.
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- Another
Tutorial
- This is a full-fledged on-line six-week class
on searching, sleuthing and sifting. If you have time and really want
to learn how to search, try some of the exercises. From the Virtual
Librarian
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- NoodleQuest
- Another way to solve the "Which search engine
shall I use?" problem.
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- The
Virtual Reference Desk Learning Center
- This very special site is designed to help K-12
students, parents and teachers find information about school subjects
and research reports. In addition, the AskA
service will put a user in touch
with an expert on a wide variety of topics. The subject and
alpha departments are easiest to use and offer contact with
experts in everything from Ask an Astronaut to Write an
Engineer. Students can use these resources for career exploration
or as resources to find answers they can't find elsewhere on the internet.
It's a joint project of the ERIC Clearinghouse and the National Library
of Education with support from the Office of Science and Technology
Policy.
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- Ask
An Expert
- Students can pose a question to an expert in
the field. Site is staffed by volunteers with varying degrees of expertise.
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Major Search Engines and Subject
Indexes
The list is long; if you don't know
where to begin, try one that is marked with a *
Whatever you do, try your
search on at least three of these helpers.
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- 100Hot.com
- See the most visited web sites.
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- About.com
- A site for every subject; a expert guide for
every site. Real people find the sites.(formerly The Mining Company.)
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- All
In One Search Page
- Categorized, but not like Yahoo.Among other things
it has a search for the lowest price, comparison pricing, domain names,
and other useful things.
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- AlphaSearch
- Searches for gateways to information by subject.
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- * Alta
Vista
- A huge search engine that gives fast, thorough
results in multiple languages. If you don't find what you want, try
the "refine search" button.
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- AOL
Netfind
- A familiar face for AOL users.
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- Argus
Clearinghouse
- Librarian/academic evaluated sites. Not for first
graders. Great for the teacher.
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- * Ask
Jeeves
- Searches in plain English . You ask it a question.
It gives you an answer. Sometimes it works wonders! Other times, nothing.
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- Awesome
Library
- Fourteen thousand resources organized
by academic subject, each divided into very specific categories to
help you find EXACTLY what you need for your grade level.
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- The
Big Hub
- Megasearch by keyword or check out a category.
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- Biographical
Dictionary
- If you're looking for biographies, also try Lives
and biography.com
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- Bubl
Link
- Subjects classified by Dewey Decimal number
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- DewPoint
- Another Internet catalog based on the Dewey Decimal
system.
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- Direct
Hit
- Results based on popularity of sites based on
other search engine results.
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- Dogpile
- One of several metasearch engines that searches
multiple search engines.
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- Excite
- Searches by keyword or concept. (i.e. Russian
Foreign policy; Italian Renaissance art. You don't need quote marks
and plus signs.)
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- FirstGov
- Doorway to the U.S. Government
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- 800go.com
- Searches 12 search engines at once.
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- FastSearch
- Natural language searching.
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- Fast
TV
- Search for video clips from movies and multimedia
resources (Requires RealPlayer .
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- Fossick
- A new metasearch engine
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- Galaxy
- Claims that its targeted directories allow for
a more directed search.
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- * Google
- Searches Altavista, Excite, Hotbot, Lycos, DejaNews,
Yahoo, NewHoo, Amazon and egroups. Fast, accurate, excellent.
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- Go.com
- Searching everything including images and audio-visual
resources.
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GoTo
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- HotBot
- Highly-rated searcher of other search engines
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- Inference
- Searches multiple search engines, culls out duplicates,
and organizes them FAST. Groups results by source: government, educational,
commercial, etc.
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- Infomine
- Scholarly Internet resources.
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- Intelliseek
- Searches multiple search engines; offers multiple
options.
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- Internet
Public Library
- Maintained by the School of Information at the
University of Michigan, this site seeks to operate like a library:
finding, selecting, organizing, describing and creating quality information
sources. Site is organized by subcategory that sound much like a "real"
library:" collections, reference, magazines and serials, exhibits,
newspapers, web searching. The
Teen Department includes a section on
how to improve research papers (with a research and writing guide),
as well as a section on Career Pathways. The
Youth Department includes Reading Zone,
Math Whiz, Our World and other youth-oriented links.
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- Invisible
Web
- Billed as the "Search Engine of all Search Engines,"
it checks 10,000 databases,
some of which are not available to other search engines.
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- IXQuick
- New. Fast. Quick. Outstanding. Don't miss this
one.
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- KidsClick
- A web search tool for kids by librarians.
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- Librarian's
Index to the Internet
- Search by keyword or category. Offers a "best
search tools" page.
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- LiteFind
- A metasearch tool that searches Google, AltaVista,
HotBot, Northern Light, Excite, Lycos and WebCrawler.
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- Lizst
- A catalog of mailing lists. Sign up for one in
your area of interest.
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- LookSmart
- Divided by category, like Yahoo.
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- Lycos
- Rates what it finds.
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- Magellan
- Rates the sites; good for "pop" topics.
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- Mamma
- Bills itself as the mother of all search engines.
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- Metacrawler
- Another engine that searches multiple engines.
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- MonsterCrawler
- Searches AsltaVista, Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek,
FAST search and Lycos all at once.
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- NBCi
- NBCs entry into the search business.
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- Netguide
- Includes some very good links to reference sources
on the net.
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- New
Athenaeumn
- Internet resource guides developed by libraries.
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- *
Northern
Light
- Organizes search results in special folders (education,
government, personal, etc. ) Ranks for relevancy. Searches special
journals not available elsewhere. You can read the summary free, but
if you want the entire article, there's a small ($1-$4 fee.)
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- OnlyEngines
- Law, medicine, news, reference, financial and
real estate information.
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- Open
Directory
- Largest human-edited directory on the web.
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- Oingo
- Meaning-Based search engine.
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- Pinakes
- Site characterizes itself as a "subject launchpad."
It starts with art and architecture, and proceeds through botany and
history to physics, with lots of stops in-between. Based in Edinburgh,
Scotland, this site points to some unusual resources. FYI: The
Pinakes was a catalog compiled by the poet Callimachus to bring
some order to the ancient Library of Alexandria, once seen as the
universal store of human knowledge. The authors are hoping this site
provides a similar service for the Internet.
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- PHOAKES
- The name stands for People Helping
One Another Know Stuff. People post their
opinions of web resources in Usenet Netnews. Then this program classifies,
abstracts and tallies those opinions and posts the results. Search
by keyword or subject and find the most frequently used web sites
on your topic.
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- *
Raging
- The newest search engine from AltaVista.
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- Research-It
- This is a one-stop quick search page: look up
definitions, antonyms, rhymes, people, quotes, maps, telephone numbers,
currency converters, stock prices, shipping charges, and listservs.
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- SavvySearch
- Searches multiple search engines.
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- ScourNet
- Finds sites that contain music, photos and video
clips.
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- The
Scout Report
- The site has a search function, but more important,
the Scout Report produces a series of free, electronic newsletters
designed to keep readers up-to-date on web sites in specific subject
areas including: K-12 education, science and engineering, social sciences,
business and economics and current events. Follow the directions on
the site to subscribe to one. It will keep you up to date with what's
new on the web in your area of interest .
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- SurfWax
- Allows user to set up personal preferences for
searches.
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- Switchboard
- Find people or businesses.
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- Thunderstone
- Search for documents and news articles here.
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- Webcrawler
- Claims to do "natural language searching."
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- WWW
Virtual Library
- Added attraction for Mac Users (OS 8.5 or later):
You can download a special plug-in that allows you to add this site
to Sherlock . A link to the plug-in appears only if you search by
keyword. Once you've downloaded it, just drag it to your system folder.
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- *
Yahoo
- Yahoo's sub-categories can be a handy way to
narrow your search; you don't have to check a zillion sites to find
what you want.
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