USING WEB FOR RESEARCH
York College Library
Information Literacy Series
CONTENT
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What is World Wide Web (WWW)?
What’s available on the Web?
Advantages and disadvantages
Website evaluation criteria
Sample search
Tricks and tips
THE INTERNET & WORLD WIDE WEB
• The Internet
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Electronic mail
Telnet
File Transfer Protocol
Gopher
The World Wide Web
More...
• World Wide Web
– An universal hypertext
system that uses the
Internet as its transport
mechanism. HTTP
(hypertext transport
protocol) servers allow
text, graphics, sound
files, etc. to be mixed
together.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE?
(Take Yahoo! As An Example)
• Yahoo! Categories
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Arts & Humanities
Business & Economy
Computers & Internet
Education
Entertainment
Government
Health
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News & Media
Recreation & Sports
Reference
Regional
Science
Social Science
Society & Culture
and more...
ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES
• Advantages
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Hypertext
Timeliness
Accessibility
OPACs
Money saving
“Back-up” copies
• Disadvantages
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“World Wide Wait”
System crash
Coverage
Reliability
Inconsistency
WEBSITE EVALUATION CRITERIA
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Authority
Accuracy
Currency
Coverage
Accessibility
Design
Convenience
Content
Who’s behind the site?
Info filtered by editors?
When was the last update?
Full text?
Fee-based? Text version?
Easy to understand?
Print-friendly? Email?
Mission clear?
SAMPLE SEARCH
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Search Engines: Yahoo!, Alta Vista
Books: Amazon.com
OPAC: NYU, QBPL
Directories: InfoSpace
Company Info: Yahoo! Finance
[At your choice]
TRICKS & TIPS
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Be Patient
Organize bookmarks
Acrobat Reader (PDF)
Download format
Right-click
Passive Search v.s.
Active Search
• Site Built-in Search
Engine
• “Find in Page” in
Netscape
• “Copy” and “Paste”
• Clear Cache
periodically
• More...
CONGRATULATIONS
• You’ve successfully
completed World Wide
Web (WWW) tutorial!
• Thanks for attending!
• Enjoy using the Web
for your research!
• Please submit the
Library Survey Form.