ENG 112
Finding Information
Agenda
•The College’s Card Catalog
•Electronic Searching
–Keywords & Boolean Searching
•Electronic Databases at Mercer
–What’s a database?
–Databases available through Mercer Library
–Accessing the databases
•Web Information
–Searching
–The Invisible Web
–Evaluating what you find
Using The Card Catalog
•The catalog is availableonline. Used to find books,videos and other materialboth in the MCCCcollection and the MercerCounty Public (MCL)libraries.
•You can have materialsfrom MCL brought to thecollege. Deliveries arriveTuesday and Fridayafternoons. (DVD’s notavailable from MCL)
Searching Electronic Databases
And The Web Too
Starting An Electronic SearchKeywords
•Keywords are used when searching electronicdatabases and web search engines
•First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) thatdescribes or is commonly used when discussing yourtopic. For example:
–Ozone
–Layer
–Depletion
–Atmosphere
–Hole
Starting An Electronic SearchBoolean Searching/Logic
•Boolean searching - Connecting keywords withthe terms
–and
–not
–or
•For example
–eagles NOT football
–(car or automobile) and exhaust
•More Terms = Fewer “Hits”
Searching More Than Just KeywordsPhrases & Truncations
•To search for a phrase, use quotationmarks
–“survival of the fittest”
•Truncations allow for searching relatedwords all at once
–The * is usually used (! For Lexis-Nexis) .For example:
•“child*” would include: child, children, childhood,childproof, etc.
Searching More Than Just KeywordsField Limiters
•Field limiters allow you to specify yoursearch within varied parameters forexample:
–Only full-text articles
–Only peer reviewed publications
–Limit your search to just the titles,abstracts, the full-text, etc. of an article
–Date (or date range)
Electronic Databases at theMercer Library
What are electronicdatabases?
•A collection of electronically searchableinformation (frequently, but not limitedto, periodical articles) that is accessiblevia the internet
•Access to this information is bysubscription only, paid by the library.
•It is accessible via the internet, but it isnot truly web information.
Electronic DatabasesIn General
•Over 30 databases available
•Not every article is available full textthough many are
•Abstracts (summary) is often availablewhen full text is not
Electronic DatabasesIn General
•Accessible at any computeron the MCCC/JKC campusnetwork
•Most are available offcampus, need to request apassword.
•Can print/e-mail/downloadarticles
Broad/General Coverage Databases
–Broadest of the databases covering everything fromscience to the humanities including many scholarlyjournals
–Not every article full text
–Need Acrobat Reader for some articles
•Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) - News
–Large collection of newspaper information from aroundthe US, nearly all full text
Subject Specific Databases
•Subject specific databases include:
–business (ABI Inform)
–art (Art Abstracts)
–architecture (Architectural Index)
–criminal justice (Criminal Justice Periodical Index)
–education (ERIC)
–mortuary science (Morgue: Mortuary Science)
–more
•Many contain full-text articles
Non-periodical Databases..
•Literature Resource Center - Reviews, criticisms, andbiographical info. on a number of authors and their works
•New York Times – Searchable articles from 1851-2000
•AP Photo Archives - Photograph collection
•Biographies Plus - Biographical information of noted peoplein a wide range of fields
•Oxford English Dictionary
•Encyclopedia Britannica
•College Source Online - College catalog info (Only avail. atthe W.W. library)
DIALOG
•Available through the college library ona very limited basis.
•Largest collection of electronicallyaccessible databases
•Been in existence for 30+ years
•Broad coverage with a “for profit” focus
•Drawback is it’s cost
E-journals, E-books, & E-libraries
•Some journals offer subscriptions to both paperand/or electronic versions. Some are exclusivelyelectronic
•Electronic subscriptions often include access todatabase of back issues (limited)
•Some books available electronically, often requiringadded hardware (reader)
•Number of titles continues to grow
•Entire E-libraries exist eBooks (over 2,000 titles)from netLibrary is available through the Mercerlibrary
Searching the World Wide Weband Evaluating What You Find
Brought to you by…
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Searching the World Wide Web
How can I find what I want?
Some things to consider whensearching the web
•Everything is NOT on the web and maynever be
•No search engine covers the entire web
•The “invisible web” is huge!
•Though there has yet to be consensus,estimates put the size of the invisibleweb between 2 and 500 times biggerthan the “visible” (or surface) web.
Searching the World Wide WebSearch Strategy
•Searching the Web is much like databasesearching:
–Put together a list of keywords describing theinformation you desire
–Use Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better define yoursearch, use double quotes for phrases, etc.
•When searching the web, also:
–Consider which search engines/sites may best suit yoursearch needs. Different search engines yield differentresults.
–Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to selectlimiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
Searching the World Wide WebSearch Engines & Meta Sites
•Search Engines:
–There are many search engines out there. Yahoo! and Googleare two of the most popular.
–You may others exist that you may want to try such as: AltaVista, Alltheweb, Infoseek, & Lycos
•Meta search sites (like Ask Jeeves, Dogpile):
–Allow you to search more than one search engines at a time.
–Can generate more “stuff” to sift through
–Limited to only basic searches, can’t use advanced searchfeatures
–Some results can be from “paid for listing” search engines
The Invisible WebWhy is so much being missed?
•When using a search engine, you are searchinga database that represents what is known tobe on the web
•Spiders or crawlers roam the web from link tolink generating this database
•Works extremely well for static all textpages in the HTML language
•The problem arises when pages are everchanging or not in HTML
So where is all of this stuff hiding?
•By far, a great amount is contained indatabases (both paid and free)
•Other places include:
–Non-text information such as photos oraudio
–PDF formatted documents
–Very new web pages
–Password only access information
Finding the invisible stuff
•The key is knowing when you need“invisible” information and then whereto find it.
•Not every web search requires lookingin the invisible web.
•Search engines work best when lookingfor a narrow, focused topic.
Some helpful invisible websites
Evaluating Web Sites
Is thisstuff anygood?
Now Back to Our“Sponsors”
&
Evaluating Web Sites
•Quality varies greatly from site tosite
•YOU are the sole evaluator of thequality of information a siteprovides
Five Web Info Evaluation Criteria
1.Accuracy - is it reliable?
2.Authority - is author qualified onsubject?
3.Objectivity - is the information biased?
4.Currency - is the information “new”enough?
5.Coverage - does the info completelycover the topic?
Evaluating Web SitesHome Page & Site Extensions
•Search engines may put you out of context, go tothe home page or “about us” page to help youevaluate the site.
•The site extension can help evaluate information
–.gov - Governmental sites
–.edu - Educational institution sites
–.com - Commercial sites
–.org - Not for profit organization sites
–.mil - Military sites
–Others are being creates that are less clear cut, e.g.:.net or .co.uk
Evaluating Web SitesOther Considerations
•Watch for information that ispositioned to sell you something.
•Altered web pages (either by accidentor maliciously)
•Links to other web sites DOES NOTnecessarily mean that the site iscredible. Evaluate each site separately.
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
•The web contains a vast amount of information…but noteverything
•Anyone can put information on the web, hence the qualityof web information varies greatly
•YOU will often be the only person to decide if the qualityof the info you find on the web is good