Transcript kathy seiler eng102 - Mercer County Community College

ENG 102
Finding Information
Martin J. Crabtree
MCCC Library
October 15, 2004
Agenda
• The College’s Card Catalog
• Electronic Searching
– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer
– What’s a database?
– Accessing the databases
– Databases available through Mercer Library
• Web Information
– Searching
– The Invisible Web
– Evaluating what you find
Using The Card Catalog
•
The catalog is available
online. Used to find books,
videos and other material
both in the MCCC
collection and the Mercer
County Public (MCL)
libraries.
•
You can have materials
from MCL brought to the
college. Deliveries arrive
Tuesday and Friday
afternoons. (DVD’s not
available from MCL)
•
Link to the catalog is on
the library’s web pages.
The link to the catalog is on the
library’s web pages.
Searching Electronic Databases
And The Web Too
Starting An Electronic Search
Keywords
• Keywords are used when searching electronic
databases and web search engines
• First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) that
describes or is commonly used when discussing your
topic. For example:
– Ozone
– Layer
– Depletion
– Atmosphere
– Hole
Starting An Electronic Search
Boolean Searching/Logic
• Boolean searching - Connecting keywords with
the terms
– and
– not
– or
• For example
– eagles NOT football
– (car or automobile) and exhaust
• More Terms = Fewer “Hits”
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Phrases & Truncations
• To search for a phrase, use quotation
marks
– “survival of the fittest”
• Truncations allow for searching related
words all at once
– The * is usually used (! For Lexis-Nexis) .
For example:
• “child*” would include: child, children, childhood,
childproof, etc.
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Field Limiters
• Field limiters allow you to specify your search
within varied parameters for example:
– Only full-text articles
– Only peer reviewed publications
– Limit your search to just the titles, abstracts, the
full-text, etc. of an article
– Date (or date range)
– A specific periodical title (or source)
– Author
Electronic Databases at the
Mercer Library
What are electronic
databases?
• A collection of electronically searchable
information (frequently, but not limited
to, periodical articles) that is accessible
via the internet
• Access to this information is by
subscription only, paid by the library.
• It is accessible via the internet, but it is
not truly web information.
Electronic Databases
In General
• Over 40 databases available
• Not every article is available full text
though many are
• Abstracts (summary) is often available
when full text is not
Electronic Databases
In General
• Accessible at any computer
on the MCCC/JKC campus
network
• Most are available off
campus, need to request a
password.
• Can print/e-mail/download
articles
Some Useful Databases
• EBSCOhost - Academic Search Premier
– Broadest of the databases covering everything from science
to the humanities including many scholarly journals
– Not every article full text
– Need Acrobat Reader for some articles
• Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) - News
– Large collection of newspaper information from around the US
and the world mostly in full text
• Ethnic Newswatch
– English and Spanish language focusing on many ethnic gropus
Subject Specific Databases
• A number of subject specific databases
are available covering:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
business
art
architecture
criminal justice
education
mortuary science
more
• Many contain full-text articles
Non-periodical Databases..
• Literature Resource Center - Reviews, criticisms, and
biographical info on a number of authors and their works.
• AP Photo Archives - Photograph collection
• Biographies Plus - Biographical information of noted people
in a wide range of fields.
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Encyclopedia Britannica
• College Source Online - College catalog info (Only avail. At
W.W. Library)
Searching the World Wide Web
and Evaluating What You Find
Brought to you by…
&
Searching the World Wide Web
How can I find what I want?
Some things to consider when
searching the web
• Everything is NOT on the web and may
never be
• No search engine covers the entire web
• The “invisible web” is huge!
• Though there has yet to be consensus,
estimates put the size of the invisible
web between 2 and 500 times bigger
than the “visible” (or surface) web.
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Strategy
• Searching the Web is much like database
searching:
– Put together a list of keywords describing the
information you desire
– Use Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better define your
search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.
• When searching the web, also:
– Consider which search engines/sites may best suit your
search needs. Different search engines yield different
results.
– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select
limiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Engines & Meta Sites
• Search Engines:
– There are many search engines out there. Yahoo! and Google
are two of the most popular.
– You may others exist that you may want to try such as: Alta
Vista, Alltheweb, Infoseek, & Lycos
• Meta search sites (like Ask Jeeves, Dogpile):
– Allow you to search more than one search engines at a time.
– Can generate more “stuff” to sift through
– Limited to only basic searches, can’t use advanced search
features
– Some results can be from “paid for listing” search engines
Sample Web Search
• Topic - Censorship in the field of Radio,
NOT Television
• Try search in:
– Google (note Google’s “cached” feature)
– AltaVista
The Invisible Web
Why is so much being missed?
• When using a search engine, you are searching
a database that represents what is known to
be on the web
• Spiders or crawlers roam the web from link to
link generating this database
• Works extremely well for static all text
pages in the HTML language
• The problem arises when pages are ever
changing or not in HTML
So where is all of this stuff hiding?
• By far, a great amount is contained in
databases (both paid and free)
• Other places include:
– Non-text information such as photos or
audio
– PDF formatted documents
– Very new web pages
– Password only access information
Finding the invisible stuff
• The key is knowing when you need
“invisible” information and then where
to find it.
• Not every web search requires looking
in the invisible web.
• Search engines work best when looking
for a narrow, focused topic.
Some helpful invisible websites
• www.lii.org - searchable annotated directory of
Internet resources
• www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm - Direct Search,
large listing of free databases
• infomine.ucr.edu [NO www] - good for searching
academic information
• completeplanet.com [No www] blend of database,
directory, & search engine information.
• www.firstgov.gov - search federal government sites
Is this
stuff any
good?
Evaluating Web Sites
Now Back to Our
“Sponsors”
&
Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to
site
• YOU are the sole evaluator of the
quality of information a site
provides
Five Evaluation Criteria
1. Accuracy - is it reliable?
2. Authority - is author qualified on
subject?
3. Objectivity - is the information biased?
4. Currency - is the information “new”
enough?
5. Coverage - does the info completely
cover the topic?
Evaluating Web Sites
The Home Page
• Search engines may put you out of context, go
the home page to help evaluate the site
• A good home page will include contact
information such as phone numbers and street
addresses (not just an e-mail address)
• Links to other web sites DOES NOT
necessarily mean that the site is credible.
Evaluate each site separately.
Evaluating Web Sites
Site Extensions
The extension can help evaluate information
• .gov - Governmental sites
• .edu - Educational institution sites
• .com - Commercial sites
• .org - Not for profit organization sites
• .mil - Military sites
• Others are being creates that are less clear
cut, e.g.: .net or .co.uk
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
• The web contains a vast amount of information…but not
everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the quality
of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if the quality
of the info you find on the web is good
Now let’s visit a site…