School of Information Management and Systems
IMS5016, IMS3616 Information Access
Tutorial 4 week 5, 4 April 2005:
Search engines on the WWW.
When it comes to online help sites, there are a huge range. Some are more
useful than others. Look at searching the Internet by starting with Monash
Library’s online tutorial: ‘How to do research on the Internet’ and the places
this leads you to. This is found at:
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/vl/www/wwwcon.htm.
Guides to how to search online
Browse the Library’s pages ‘Search the Internet’ and consider the range of
tools available
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/ikiosk/search.html
Have a look at the ‘Librarians’ Index to the Internet’:
http://lii.org/search/file/netsearch. It is an extremely useful site to keep in
mind, for updates on changes.
Many library websites provide information on searching the Internet.. A
thorough one can be found at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html.
Greg Notess’s site is always well worth looking at: http://notess.com.
Greg for many years wrote about online and database searching, but now has
turned his critiques to the Web.
Please also follow the link to: http://searchengineshowdown.com/features/,
which covers features of search engines in a very concise matrix summary.
There are very detailed web searching studies at:
http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/index.php.
Reading
Read Maureen Henninger’s chapter ‘Search engines – the searching tools’
that has been digitised by the Library for this subject’s readings.
Read the article, “Better than Google?” handed out in class before Easter. Try
out some of the searches mentioned in the article. It will be digitised and
added to the IMS5016/3616 reading list soon.
Exercise:
Compare results for the same search on Google, Vivisimo and Teoma. Use
a variety of approaches including advanced search and phrase searching.
You could try one of the topics you will use in your assignment. If you are
stuck for a topic try looking for articles on venerable reference works!
Further work
As you practice database and internet searching use topics that you are
interested in as well as the topics listed in the assignment. Note down your
approach, especially how you improve your searches. Look at the Advanced
Search options too. In your assignment, one of the things to do is to analyse
how your searching skills have improved.
Anna Davis, Graeme Johanson, 2 April, 2005