Lynn Scott Cochrane, Director of Libraries at Denison University, shares several scenarios that demonstrate why "not everything is available free on the web." This is a great read for anyone that thinks the Internet holds all the answers, or if you do not know (or cannot explain) how libraries and the Internet complement each other.
Accessible Search is an early Google Labs product designed to identify and prioritize search results that are more easily usable by blind and visually impaired users. Regular Google search helps you find a set of documents that is most relevant to your tasks. Accessible Search goes one step further by helping you find the most accessible pages in that result set.
Here are various Google tips to assist in your research:
RANKING
To put more emphasis on one of the words in your search results, repeat the word in the search.
NUMBER RANGE
Two periods between two numbers is like typing all the numbers into the search box. This would be very helpful when searching for entries in a range of years.
DEFINITIONS
Google will provide a definition by using the search "define:word". For example, "define: nanotechnology" will result in various definitions. Of course, the results must be analyzed by the user to determine accuracy.
CALCULATOR & CONVERTER
The Google search box is a calculator--try typing 2+2. Even better, it's a converter--try 10kg in lbs. It does monetary conversions, too (with a disclaimer).
SYNONYMS
A tilde (~) in front of a word in your search tells Google that you also want to search for synonyms. For example, "tire" brings up 104 million entries, but "~tire" increases the results to 414 million. The results now include words such as "tyre" (the British spelling). Becareful and update your search as needed, because "rubber" was also included which might have nothing to do with your information need.
On February 24, 2006, the Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Google Co-Founder and President of Technology Sergey Brin announced the launch of a pilot program to make holdings of the National Archives available for free online. This non-exclusive agreement will enable researchers and the general public to access a diverse collection of historic movies, documentaries and other films from the National Archives via Google Video as well as the National Archives website.
The Internet Society is just one of several professional societies with the goal of addressing future issues of the Internet. The web site provides a variety of resources. One key area might be the All About the Internet section that contains information on Internet law, history of the Internet, information about the infracture, Internet standards, and Internet statistics. A user can also explore information about the Internet Code of Conduct.
The Internet SOCiety (ISOC) is a professional membership society with more than 100 organization and over 20,000 individual members in over 180 countries. It provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
Explore how Google collects and ranks results as described by Matt Cutts, Google quality engineer. He gives some great examples that can easily be shared with library patrons, students, or anyone else that is interested.
In time for the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth, a Web portal (http://ben.clusty.com) based on clustering technology is offering a new method to separate useful Franklin facts from the normal flood of online information.
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Franklin was an important figure not only in U.S. history, but also for science and engineering. From studies of electricity, weather and ocean currents to his development of the lightning rod, double spectacles (bifocals) and the odometer, many of his innovations and discoveries were groundbreaking.
The NSF release talks about the web portal's development with information on Vivisimo, Clusty, and the related NSF grant.
Charles W. Bailey, Jr., on his weblog DigitalKoans, has created a bibliography that tracks electronic publications that address Google Print and related legal issues.
Yahoo! Site Explorer Beta allows the user to enter a web address, and all links that have been indexed from that site by Yahoo! will be listed. This feature works great if you cannot find the site map of a web site or the site map is inadequate. It also allows a user to see what web sites linked back to the original. Very neat, especially of you are trying to judge the reach of your own web site.
In SearchEngineWatch, Mary Ellen Bates wrote an article about how to find things on the internet without relying solely on search engines. Using her example of finding information on the trends in the U.K. market for Internet phones, otherwise known as VOIP (voice over Internet protocol), she walks you through her entire search process. By following her search process, you can learn a lot about developing an effective search process of your own.
Some keys search skills or resources she addressed included:
In the August 15th issue of Forbes, Stephen Manes discusses the resources that libraries offer which Google cannot match. He touches on examples of several resources, include fulltext materials that are usually exclusive to library users.
Just viewing this article can show a user why libraries can be superior to the Internet in locating resources. Forbes.com has made the article available, but a person must register first to see it. The Kelvin Smith Library has THREE methods to access this article for free for faculty and students, which becomes obvious when you search the A-Z Electronic Journal List. For example, a member of the Case community on the campus network or using the VPN access can view the fulltext of the article through EBSCO Academic Search Premier.
Thomas Mann, a Reference Librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, provided a nice summary of why Google's keyword searching will never replace the Library of Congress and other library-related classification schemes in scholastic research.
OhioLINK Library Resources linked to Google Scholar
This announcement was recently received from Candi Clevenger at OhioLINK Headquarters.
"If you're not familiar with Google Scholar, it's Google's specialized search engine for conducting scholarly research. As Google explains, you can 'use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.'
While we still think that visiting your local academic library (in person or online) is the BEST way to find scholarly information for class assignments and research, Google Scholar is now a better secondary source for preliminary research. Why? Because now you can see whether you have free access to the resources you find using Google Scholar.
Here's how it works. After you conduct a search in Google Scholar, you will see "Find it with OLinks" or "OhioLINK OLinks" for journal articles and books. Click on this link to see if you can access the article or book (for free!) from OhioLINK or our 85 member libraries. If an article is available online, OLinks can lead you directly to it for free. If the article or book is in print, OLinks can tell you where to find it at your library or elsewhere in Ohio.
"OLinks" displays automatically if you are searching on-campus. If you're using Google Scholar while off-campus, or if links to OLinks don't show while on-campus, you can manually configure your browser to use OLinks. To do so, set your preferences in Google Scholar (link =http://scholar.google.com/scholar_preferences?prev=/) by entering "Ohio" or "OhioLINK" in the box marked "institutional access." You can also enter your school's name, as your local library may provide other linking options in Google Scholar.
And please remember, don't pay for information online that you can get from your library for free! If you're ever asked for payment to view an article or resource online while using Google Scholar, visiting a publishers' site,or any other reason, contact your library first to see if you can access the same, or perhaps a better resource from your library or OhioLINK for free."
Also keep in mind that there are still many resources that are available through Case Libraries that do not appear in Google Scholar. If you have questions e-mail us at askalibrarian@case.edu or call 368-6596 or use our chat reference service by clicking on the chat icon that appears on many KSL pages.
