Transcript There’s more out there than the Free web!

Uncovering the
Web
Can your favorite
search engine
find all there
is to find on the
Web?
It finds all we need to find,
right guys?
Think again.
• Search engines access a relatively
small part of the Web, known as
the “free Web”
• A large portion of the Web,
inaccessible to the search engines,
is known as the “Invisible Web”
What’s not on the free Web?
• Around 90% of the books on our
library’s shelves, still under the
protection of copyright
• The full-text of many magazine and
newspaper articles
• Expensive reference and nonfiction
books, like literary criticism, and indepth biographical and historical works
Isn’t the free
stuff on the
Web just as
good?
And why can’t
we get this
stuff for free?
Publishing is a business!
• Serious authors are in the business of
earning money for their hard work
• Publishers also expect a return on their
work and investment
• Copyright laws protect “intellectual
property” from theft
Your teachers
expect quality!
• Material from the subscription
services is likely to be viewed by your
teachers as more authoritative
• You may have to defend some of the
sources you find on the free Web
• You may want to dig deep on the free
Web for some harder to find sources.
I’d like to see
an example
of that!
Free Web databases!
For example:
Say you are looking for photographs of the
Battle of Gettysburg
You may find some good ones through an
image search on your favorite search engine
But did you know there is a database
DEVOTED to Civil War photographs?
Search engines cannot pick
up those photos of Gettysburg
in that rich database because
the database content
is not searchable
until you are actually in the
database.
Try this database!
Selected Civil War Photographs
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html
But how do you find a
database like that?
• Use the word database with your search
terms.
• Use a tool like Librarian’s Internet Index
(lii.org) to identify specialized databases
• Use a search tool specifically designed to
pick up items the other search engines missa search tool for the Invisible Web
• Look for portals, or gateway sites, relating to
your subject area
Other Web content may be invisible
to your search engine:
• Files not written in html (some search engines can
locate alternate formats)
• Sites requiring a login, like the free New York Times
Book Review
• Longer files with content beyond the reach of robots
or spiders
• Pages created by a search
• Private information owned by a company or
organization
• Pages that are new or not frequently linked to
Some search tools for the Invisible Web
Invisible Web Directory
http://invisible-web.net/
CompletePlanet
http://www.completeplanet.com/index.asp
Incy Wincy
http://www.incywincy.com/
OAIster Search Interface
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/index.html
Pinakes Subject Launchpad
http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html
And . . .
The Invisible Web also
includes subscription, or
proprietary databases!
Presenting:
Redwood High School
subscription databases
http://rhslibrary.org
EBSCO Databases I
• Magazines (MAS Ultra
– Student Ed.)
• Newspaper Source
• Science Reference
Center
• History Reference
Center
•
•
•
•
•
•
TOPICsearch
Health Source
Columbia Encyclopedia
Middle Search Plus
MagillOnLiterature Plus
MagillOnHistory
EBSCO Databases II
• Advanced Placement Source
• ERIC
• Professional Development Collection
This is the good stuff
Ignoring these databases is
like asking your folks to get
premium cable and watching
basic cable stations all the
time. It’s a real waste!
Any questions?