Internet
Searching Methods
There are four general
methods for accessing information on the Internet:
1) Surfing (following
one hyper-text link to another)
- includes the "serendipity"
factor
2) Browsing directories
(such as Yahoo)
- directories list
web sites by category ñ they are organized and indexed
by specially trained people (often librarians)
3) Using Search
engines (such as Google)
- search the Internet
using keywords.
- search engines
"collect" sites and "index" keywords via
computer programs
4) Using the Internet
to access specialized databases
These methods are
not mutually exclusive and people typically use more than one
at a time and often the distinctions become blurred especially
as a number of sites offer access to both a directory and a search
engine or specialized database.
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Internet
Searching Tips
Use a directory
when you want to browse the Internet for sites in a particular
subject area.
Use a search engine
when you want to access information on a particular topic
Before searching,
identify principal search terms: primary keywords, phrases or
concepts; consider synonyms; consider necessary truncation
You can further
qualify your search by using boolean operators (consult specific
search engine help information to discover how to use boolean
operators in a specific search engine)
Phrase searching
(searching for a particular string of words in a specific order)
is usually possible.
Consider date restrictions
and format restrictions (text, image, sound clips)
Note that sites
ending in:
- .com may or
may not be companies/commercial sites
- .org may or
may not be non-profit organizations
- .edu are educational
institutions
- .ca are Canadian
public sector organizations/companies
- .on.ca are
Ontario public sector organizations/companies
URLs (Uniform Resource
Locators) are the web addresses of Web pages. If you come across
a dead link for a page within a site, try deleting parts of the
URL, starting from the right-hand side and stopping at every
slash (/). Then hit Enter or Return. Often, the
page you arrive at will contain an updated link to the "lost"
page. This will only work if the page still exists but has been
moved to another directory within the site.
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Subject
Directories (selected)
Galaxy http://www.einet.net/galaxy.html
- not as simple to
use as Yahoo! but aimed at a more professional or academic audience.
The professional directory at the top of the page is quite good.
Infoseek http://www.infoseek.com/
- known more as a
search engine, Infoseek has a directory that rivals Yahoo in
size keyword searching must be done on both the directory and
engine at the same time.
Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com/
- best known of all
directories and the best place to start to search Yahoo! more
effectively, click on the ìoptionsî link beside
the "Search" button.
Beaucoup
http://www.beaucoup.com/
- lots and lots of
subject specific engines and directories, sorted into broad subject
categories.
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General
Search Engines (selected)
AltaVista
www.altavista.com
- the favorite engine
of many librarians because of its advanced search capabilities
beware that Advanced search results aren't ranked automatically.
HotBot www.hotbot.lycos.com
- user friendly thanks
to a fill-in-the-blank search interface try the "More Search
Options" link for even more powerful searching.
Infoseek www.infoseek.go.com
- good search engine
for new users because it doesnít require (or support)
complex searches includes good database of information on major
(American) companies
Northern
Light www.northernlight.com
- searches both the
Web and a periodical index (though viewing articles is fee based)
results are automatically sorted by subject into folders.
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Meta
Search Engines (selected)
Unfortunately, meta
engines aren't nearly as wonderful as they often claim. Search
syntax requirements of the different engines varies too greatly
to produce reliably consistent results. Meta engines work best
for searching individual words that are very unusual.
Cyber
411 www.cyber411.com
- as its banners
states, "fifteen search engines, one query".
Dogpile www.dogpile.com
- searches numerous
engines and directories as well as newsgroups and newswires.
Metacrawler
www.metacrawler.com
- decent meta search
engine, but there is very poor online help.
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Evaluating
WWW information
Web resources could
be produced by anyone. It is important not to accept information
found on the web without first critically evaluating it.
Some
things to consider in evaluating web information:
- Author or contact
person : what are their credentials?
- Is contact information
for the author or producer included in the document?
- Are they affiliated
with an established organization?
- Is there a link
to a local home page or institution?
- When was the site
created and/or last updated?
- How up to date
are the links?
- How reliable are
the links; are there blind links, or references to sites that
have moved?
- What is the purpose
of the information, i.e. does it inform, explain, or persuade?
- Who is the intended
audience?
- How comprehensive
is this site?
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Some
useful sites for us (don't
forget our own Useful Links page)
General Medical
Sites With Reasonable to Good Alternative Medicine Information:
- Achoo http://www.achoo.com
(one of the more well known health directories; sites listed
are described, catalogued, indexed and evaluated).
- Current Web Contents
http://www.isi.com (produced by the Institute
for Scientific Information; includes evaluated scholarly sites).
- Healthfinder http://www.healthfinder.gov
(good directory of rated sites).
- Healthweb http://www.healthweb.org
(evaluated sites by US university librarians).
- Healthworld Online
http://www.healthy.net (fully searchable; extensive;
reviewed sites; reviewers include leaders in both conventional
and alternative medicine).
- McMaster University's
Health Care Information Resourceshttp://www-hsl.mcmaster.ca/tomflem/altmed.html
(annotated links; introductory notes; includes Canadian and French
language sites often overlooked elsewhere).
Alternative Medicine
Sites
- Alternative Medicine
Foundation http://www.amfoundation.org (non-profit foundation;
includes their research and projects including 2 specialized
databases; explanation of terminology and common abbreviations
and annotated links).
- Alternative Medicine
Homepage (University of Pittsburgh) http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/altm.html
(listed with Current Web Contents produced by the Institute for
Scientific Information - see above; reviewed links; practitioners
directories; database directory).
- Bastyr University
Library www.bastyr.org/library/ (very good and up-to-date
listing, includes extensive subject directories; listservs; and
more).
- Exeter University
Library - Complementary Health Studies http://www.ex.ac.uk/~prmaggs/lib/sschs.html site not usually found elsewhere;
Exeter has excellent reputation for research in CAM).
- HealingPeople.Com
http://www.healingpeople.com (previously Acupuncture.com;
highly regarded commercial Internet site; more than 'acupuncture'
- hence the recent name change).
- National Centre
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Office of Alternative
Medicine, US Government) http://altmed.od.nih.gov (Includes a classification
of CAM practices; Research reports and the CAM Citation Index
consisting of more than 175,000 bibliographic citations).
- Rosenthal Centre
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Columbia University)
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/rosenthal
(includes an excellent directory of databases for CAM).
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