SUPER SEARCHER: ENHANCING YOUR ONLINE SEARCH SUPER POWERS

Emily J. HurstTechnology CoordinatorNational Network of Libraries of MedicineSouth Central Region

Where Searching Begins

“Most internet users start at a search engine when looking for health information online.” (Pew Internet and American Life Project. Press Release. 2006)

http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2006/Most-internet-users-start-at-a-search-engine-when-looking-for-health-information-online.aspx

Search Engine Popularity

“On any given day in early 2012, more than half of adults using the internet use a search engine (59%). ” (Pew Internet and American Life Project. Search Engine Use 2012. 2012.)

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Search_Engine_Use_2012.pdf

Privacy and Searching

“Three-quarters of search users say collecting user information to personalize search results is not okay”. (Pew Internet and American Life Project. Search Engine Use 2012. 2012.)

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Search_Engine_Use_2012.pdf

Results provided by comScore reports for June 2011. Based on a total of 19,269 total searches (U.S. only).

Top 5 Search Providers

Search Engines Then

Search Engines Now

Rev Your Search Engine

Pop the hood and take a look around the search engine.

Formula for Success

Complex and often secret algorithms determine which parts of the Web will be searched.

Result Overload

Results are ranked based on several factors (determined by the search algorithm).

Beware of information overload.

SEO: What You Need to Know Search Engine Optimization

Helps webpages move to the top of the results list

Deigned to “fool” the system

Uses coding and/or writing to help a page rank higher in results

Two Search Engine Shell Games

http://blindsearch.fejus.com/ (Bing and Google Only) http://blekko.com/ws/your+search+terms+/monte

(Bing, Google and Blekko)

Advanced Search Features

Google Search

http://www.google.com http://www.google.com/advanced_se

arch

Yahoo! Search

http://www.yahoo.com/ vs http://search.yahoo.com/

Bing Search

http://www.bing.com

Warning! Result Overload

Google Results Tools

Basic search: http://www.google.

com

More Search Tools

New to You

Blekko http://blekko.com/ http://blekko.com/ws/+/press-videos Slashtag search

DuckDuckGo http://duckduckgo.com/ Instant and zero click results No tracking

Exercise Set I

Test your skills Time to work on practice questions. A link is provided to an online exercise set.

The “Deep Web”

The Invisible Web

Search engines cover less than 20% of the entire Web.

BREAK TIME

Image from Batman Animated Series from Warner Bros. Animation.

Scholarly Pursuits

Wolfram Alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/

Microsoft Academic Search http://academic.research.microsoft

.com/

Blast from the Past

Wayback machine http://www.archive.org/

CyberCemetery http://govinfo.library.unt.edu

Google Cache http://www.google.com Search using cache:URL

Media Searching

What types of media are commonly searched for? Books/Print Images Video

Books/Print Search

Project Guttenberg http://www.gutenberg.o

rg/wiki/Main_Page

Google Book Search http://books.google.c

om/

Small Demons http://www.smalldemon

s.com

Image Search

Google Images http://www.images.google.c

om

Picture This

Flickr http://www.flickr.co

m

Flickr – The Commons http://www.flickr.co

m/commons/

Art Class

National Library of Medicine Digital Collections http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/muradora/

National Gallery of Art Images (NGA Images) https://images.nga.gov/

Just Press Play

YouTube http://www.youtube.

com

Vimeo http://vimeo.com/

Watch and Learn

PBS Learning Media http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

C-SPAN Video Library http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/

YouTube EDU http://www.youtube.com/education

Exercise Set II

Test your skills Time to work on practice questions. A link is provided to an online exercise set.

Searching 2.0

Where will searching take us next?

The New Normal

Data from 2009 shows Twitter growing as a search resource.

http://searchengineland.com/twitter-does-19-billion-searches-per-month-39988

Real-Time Results

Twitter http://www.search.twitter.

com http://www.twitjobsearch.

com

http://topsy.com/

Social Media Search

SamePoint http://www.samepoint.com/ Reputation Management Search Engine

LinkedIn Today http://www.linkedin.com/today/ Updates from Twitter and posting on LinkedIn

Google+ Searching

Going Mobile

Top 5 Websites Accessed Over Mobile Phones (US) January – September 2009 Google Search Yahoo! Mail Gmail Weather Channel Facebook

Data from the Nielsen Company http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_

mobile/top-mobile-phones-sites-and-brands-for-2009/

SMS Search Tools

Libraries using SMS for reference http://bit.ly/c0QwFW

KGB http://www.kgbanswers.com/

Cha-Cha http://www.chacha.com/

Easy Interfaces

Mobile search interfaces are streamlined to make searching on the go easier.

Google Mobile Updated 2011 http://www.google.com

Yahoo Mobile http://m.yahoo.com/sear

ch

Mobile Near You

Using phone’s GPS search for information near you.

Aloqa App http://www.aloqa.co

m/ Combines social and

local information in one place

Mobile Visual Search

Google Goggles http://

www.google.com/mobile/goggles

Goggles On!

Goggles searches for text and images.

Seeing Things Differently

Augmented Reality Use mobile device to

scan and find things around you

Robotvision and others Search Nearby:

Tweets Restaurants Hotels More

Seeing Things Differently

Exercise Set III

Test your skills Time to work on practice questions. A link is provided to an online exercise set.

Keeping Up: Resources

New Books Sauers, Michael. Searching 2.0. 2009.

Devine, Jane and Francine Egger-Sider. Going Beyond Google: The Invisible Web in Learning and Teaching. 2009.

Croft, Bruce, Donald Metzler and Trevor Strohman. Search Engines: Information Retrieval in Practice. 2009.

Search Engine Resources

Google http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/

search http://labs.google.com

Yahoo http://research.yahoo.com/

Bing http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/

default.aspx

Search Engine Resources

How Stuff Works: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/search-engine.htm

Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/

Tame the Web: http://tametheweb.com/

Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/

Search Engine Resources

INFOdocket – Gary Price: http://infodocket.com/

Librarian of Fortune – Mary Ellen Bates: http://www.batesinfo.com/Writing/Writing/

LOFblog.html

Library Resources

Library Success Wiki: http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Search_Engines

Infopeople Search Tools Chart: http://www.infopeople.org/search/chart.html

LITA blog: http://litablog.org/

Questions

Contact

Emily J. Hurstemily.hurst@exch.library.tmc.eduTechnology CoordinatorNational Network of Libraries of

Medicine, South Central Region