Guide To Using Library Search EnginesLibrary search engine or search engines in general are a system used for information recovery. It helps you find information stored in a computer system. It allows you to ask for specific criteria, words or phrase and it will retrieve all the list of sites that match with the criteria you are looking for. To function quickly and efficiently, search engines usually use updated indexes. Most engines collect data available in newsgroups, database, or open directories. Search engines functions through web crawling, indexing, and searching respectively. Internet Usage is generally smooth because of search engines. Web crawler also known as a spider is an automated web browser that retrieves information in a large number of web pages by following every link it sees. Some search engines stores every word of every page they find while others store all part of the source page. When the users hit the key words to make a query, the search engine looks up the index and offers a listing of matched web pages according to its criteria, title, and some part of the text. The result is said to be relevant if the search engine gives back a useful site for the search. The user always wants to find the best library search engine that will help him get the best result. The problem arises because the user does not know which engine to use. Sometimes he just uses the search engine that he knows for specific criteria on his search but it just doesn’t deliver satisfactory results. A variety of criteria for each search has a corresponding search engine that can deliver a suitable result. Use the Google engine when you are looking for something specific like a home page, title, company, association, government agency, a person, court, etc. If you are looking for current news which is less than 30 days old, use AltaVista News, Daypop, Moreover.com, Pandia Newsfinder or RocketNews. Use a metasearch service for scanning the web. If you try to look for a current document or documents released or published recently or on the present day, use the Pandia Newsfinder, RocketNews, AltaVista News, or Moreover.com Try to use the Yahoo News if it is a popular document or press release and if it concerns a social policy issue, use the Policy.com. Use the Google Uncle Sam or Northern Light if you are looking for government information such as primary law, guidance documents, memoranda, and reports. Use American Factfinder, Census Economic Briefing Room, and FedStats when you are looking for statistics. When you are looking for a database like medical, general, and psychological records and other public records, try to use the Librarian’s Index to the Internet, Resource Discovery Network, Direct Search, INFOMINE, and Invisible-Web.net. Search engines differ with each other, some engines requires certain ways of asking or query to produce the best results while others just requires the typing of the key words. AltaVista requires enclosing the words in quotation marks if you are searching for a phrase and proper name with standard capitalization, an asterisk to truncate for an ending, and advance search for more particular results. Lycos requires the use of a dollar sign ($) to truncate for an ending and it is also used to search for pictures. Yahoo, Excite, and Info seek search engine use the same guidelines as AltaVista. While Web Crawler is an engine with directory produced by America Online and requires quotation marks for phrase and proper name searching. |