Transcript ENG 102-standard

ENG 102
Finding Information
Agenda
• The College’s Card Catalog
• Electronic Searching
– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer
– What’s a database?
– Databases available through Mercer Library
– Accessing the databases
• 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.
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 30 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. An e-mail address
is required to obtain a
password.
• Can print/e-mail/download
articles
Broad/General Coverage 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, nearly all full text
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
• eBooks from netLibrary- 1,800+ books available to browse
& checkout electronically.
• 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)
– MSN
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)
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
Evaluating Web Sites
Other Considerations
• Watch out for information that is
positioned to sell you something.
• Altered web pages (either by accident
or maliciously)
• Links to other web sites DOES NOT
necessarily mean that the site is
credible. Evaluate each site separately.
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…