The Web
The
World Wide Web, though just part of the Internet,
is the Internet to many. Though sad, it is
a fact of life. I must admit the Web is both fun and quite useful (for
a fun site try
Postcards). Since I first prepared these pages early in 1996, the Web
has gone main stream. Web search tools, though improving, still take a lot
of savvy for effective production of useful information or for that
matter for the discovery of fun sites.
Since the Web is "commercial" and search engines (tools?) are
the primary vehicle used by the "public" to find Web stuff, I
suppose you will not be surprised to find that there is much interest in
these search engines. First, the engine creators are vying for supremacy
at finding material (or at least having the public think they are supreme)
and the various sites are working on ways to cause the engines to "hit"
on them.
For more than you wanted to know about search engines see Search Engine Watch.
New search tools are popping up all over. A recent phenomenon is the 'Portal'.
A portal is a site that attempts to offer an entry way to the Web by providing
the 'surfer' with easy to use 'channels' of information and/or natural language
searching. Some examples of portals are listed below:
This not withstanding, you can improve your chance of a successful
Web search if you understand the process, select a tool appropriate
to your quest, and form an efficient query. Please note my use of the
word 'tool.' Not all search tools are search engines. In fact some
engines use other search engines to power their searches.
Though differentiation among search tools is becoming much less
distinct, there are, in general, five types of Web search tools
out there.
- 1. Keyword Indexes
- Indexes were the first search engines, crawling the Web collecting
data and sorting it into searchable indexes.
Among the most popular of these Popular Indexes is
AltaVista.
AltaVista is a powerful tool but not very subtle, returning
reams of URLs, many not germane to your quest. Sorting
through multiple "hits" can take a while.
- 2. Subject Directories
- Web subject directories, on the other hand, are created with
more human intervention. Information is sorted into
categories and brief descriptions are appended. Popular
directories include
Yahoo and
LookSmart.
While not as comprehensive as Indexes the sorting is better, though
subjective.
- 3. Catalogs
- Catalogs, like directories have human intervention but
generally no search engines.
A sample of a catalog is
Al's Catalog. Another is
Scott Kerlin's Library
- 4. Speciality Indexes
- Speciality indexes limited searching to specific collections such as
medicine.
CiteLine is an example of this type. Another is
MapBlast
which returns location maps in response to query.
- 5. Multiple Search
- These sites assign the search query to multiple tools and return
a summary of the returns.
SavvySearch in this category is particularly interesting. It allows
you to customize your search by selecting from among 100 tools.
Also we, by virtue of our access to the UMUC library, have some
extensive and expensive additional online resources. The
UMUC Library
provides no-cost access to 60 or more rather impressive databases. Even
better, many are full text, all have search mechanisms, and possibly
more importantly, many are peer reviewed. Since anyone
can publish on the Net, a peer review (review of material by one or
more accredited experts) is becoming increasingly important. This
review is a significant factor to consider when evaluating the
validity of information found on the Net.
For a really BIG list of search resources see
Beaucoup. An excellent Web
searching tutorial called 'Bare Bones 101' can be found at the
University of South Carolina's
Beaufort Library.
I suggest you explore the searches resources available, select a half
dozen or so, and learn how to use these in detail.
An exercise for students: Checkout some of the UMUC Library
databases.
An exercise for students: Oh yes, let us not forget our quest
for chili, vegetarian this time. You distance folks please send your
find to our class mailing list.
