Searching the Resources Over Internet
 

Introduction:

It is easy to get connected to Internet than to find out what one needs. Because the Internet was built by and for Sophisticated computer users it is not as user friendly as general user needs. The Internet is hard to learn for use, almost completely disorganized, there is too much of information and it is also growing too fast. There are some basic tools and utilities for working on the Internet and these are:

1) Electronic mail or EMAIL allows users to send messages

2) USENET News is the world’s largest bulletin board service, it lets the user read and post message that has been sent to public newsgroups
3) Telnet  is used for logging into other computers on the Internet. It is used to access databases, library catalogue etc.
4) FTP is a tool for moving files back and forth, and is useful for retrieving files from public archives scattered around the world
5) Archie lets the user to locate files on Internet.
6) Gopher  lets the user to prowl through the Internet by selecting resources from menus.
7) WAIS searches and provide access to resources on Internet without regard for where they are really reside.
8) WWW provides information through hypertext technology
However among these, WWW has become so popular that when people speak of Internet they mean WWW. And searching Internet implies searching www sites for relevant information.

 

What is WWW (World Wide Web) ?

A system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. The documents are formatted in a language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that supports links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files. This means you can jump from one document to another simply by clicking on hot spots. Not all Internet servers are part of the World Wide Web. There are several applications called Web browsers that make it easy to access the World Wide Web; Two of the most popular being Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
 
What are you searching for?

Finding the required information means finding out Web documents (a.k.a. Web "pages" or "sites") you want. It can be easy or seem impossibly difficult. This is in part due to the sheer size of the WWW, currently estimated to contain 1 billion documents. It is also because the WWW is not indexed in any standard vocabulary (unlike a library's catalogs which assign Library of Congress or some other widely accepted standardized subject descriptors to their documents, or a journal-article index which uses its standardized subject descriptors).

When you do what is called "searching the Web," you are NOT searching it directly.  It is not possible to search the WWW directly.  The Web is the totality of the many web pages which reside on computers (called "servers") all over the world.  Your computer cannot find or go to them all directly.  What you are able to do through your computer is access one of several intermediate databases and/or web-pages which contains selections of other web pages organized to allow you to find other web pages and sometimes other databases.  You search these intermediate "search tools," and they can provide you with hypertext links (URLs) to other pages.  You click on these links, and retrieve documents, images, sound, and more from individual servers around the world.

Categories of Search Tools Available:

1.Search Engines

2.Meta-Search Engines
3.Subject Directories
4.Subject Guides
5.Subject Databases available via WEB.
6.Virtual Reference Libraries
7.Locating Peers and Experts through online discussion groups
8.Finding Individual People's Pages and E-Addresses
9.Links to Research Grant Information pages

 

1. Search Engines

Full-text of selected Web pages. Search by keyword, trying to match exactly the words in the pages. No browsing, no subject categories. Databases compiled by "spiders" (computer-robot programs) with minimal human oversight. Search-Engine size: from small and specialized to 90+ percent of the indexable Web.

Examples : Alta Vista, Northern Light, Infoseek, Fast Search, Hotbot, Lycos, Excite .
 
 

2. Meta-Search Engine

Meta-Search Engines quickly and superficially search several individual search engines at once and return results compiled into a sometimes convenient format.  They only catch about 10% of search results in any of the search engines they visit.

Examples : Metacrawler, Inference Find, Dogpile, Metafind

This site has 900 Search Engines which are listed from around 59 countries:-

http://www.searchenginecolossus.com

This site can be used to filter adult links from your search:-
http://www.mirago.co.uk/zone

This search engine claims to index all the sites on the Net in the coming year:-
http://www.alltheweb.com

One of the fast growing regional portals in the U.S for region based Searching:-
http://www.welcometosearch.com

INDIAN SEARCH ENGINES

Jadoo [http://www.jadoo.com]
Khoj [http://www.khoj.comj]
123 India.com [http://www.123india.com]
Search Engine Portal [http://www.samilan.com/sairexp.html]
Indian Search [http://www.hindustan.net]
 

3. Subject Directories:

Hand-selected sites picked by editors, more or less carefully. These are organized into hierarchical subject categories. Often annotated with descriptions (not in Yahoo!). Are browseable subject categories or search using broad, general terms. NO full-text of documents and one can search only the subject categories and descriptions.

Examples : Librarians' Index, Infomine, Britannica's Internet Guide, Yahoo!, Galaxy, Scout Report Signpost, Looksmart, Lycos's A2Z and Top 5%, Built into Infoseek, Excite, Most university libraries maintained subject directories.

Librarians' Index to the Internet  http://www.lii.org

Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu/Main.html
Britannica's "Web's best sites"  http://www.britannica.com/
Scout Report Signpost  http://www.signpost.org/
Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com
Galaxy http://galaxy.com
Martindale's The Reference Desk  http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu:80/HSG/HSGuide.html
Price's List of Lists  http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm
Subject Area Links http://webpages.marshall.edu:80/~jmullens/subj_areas.html
 

Recommended for Biomedical Researchers -

 
4. Subject Guides
Web pages of sites selected and organized by "experts" and with lots of links to important resources on a topic, incorporating the author's expertise and time spent searching the Web. They differ from "Subject Directories" which are databases of handpicked sites on many subjects, organized into a subject-classification scheme. Web pages of collections of hypertext links on a subject compiled by "expert" subject specialists, agencies, associations, and hobbyists. Can be located through special guides to guides or subject directories or sometimes among search engine keyword search results.

Examples:

The Argus Clearinghouse,  http://www.clearinghouse.net Searchable database of guides to subjects/topics, compiled by "experts" and reviewed and evaluated by Argus staff. Emphasis generally scholarly. Guides not maintained and revised are relegated to a sub-list.

UCB Internet Resources by Subject, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/acadtarg.html Many links to Internet resources on many academic disciplines selected by UC Berkeley Library subject-specialists.

WWW Virtual Library, http://conbio.rice.edu/vl/database/  Browse subject list of subject guides, prepared by individuals all over the world and mirrored in this list at Stanford, Fisk University, and elsewhere.  You may try searching from the box on this page, but often browsing finds pages the search does not.

Recommended for Biomedical Researchers –

Dan's Top 100 Bioinformatics Bookmarks http://telomere.nrc.ca/html/dans_list.html
Harvard University, Dept. of Molecular & Cellular Biology http://mcb.harvard.edu/BioLinks.html
The Virtual Library : BioScience http://www.vlib.org/Biosciences.html

 

5. Subject Databases available via WEB.

The Web provides access through a search box into the contents of a database in a computer somewhere. Can be on any topic, can be trivial, commercial, task-specific, or a rich treasure devoted to your topic. Locate by special guides to databases, in Librarian's Index, Yahoo!, and sometimes by keyword searching general search engines. Databases exist on all sorts of topics and for many purposes (social, scholarly, scientific, research, legal, commercial, trivial, ...).  Keep your approach VERY broad and general.

Example:

Search.com,   http://search.cnet.com
Very convenient, searchable collection of searchable databases. Very worthwhile for many topics and for reference.  Overlaps somewhat with Internet Sleuth. In lower yellow area (not the top box on the home page, which is general web searching), select a subject category. You may enter a search directly from the resulting Search.com screen.  OR, search using keywords on your topic. Scroll down below the list of subject categories on the home page and click on Find a search (keep searches very broad and simple).  OR, click on A-Z list to see an alphabetical list of everything available through Search.com.

Beaucoup,   http://www.beaucoup.com
Links to many search engines, subject directories, meta-search engines, and tools to find media, geographic-based sites, reference sites, software, music, art, education, technology, politics/government, hobbies/games, and more. Browse categories to the left, especially the broad subjects toward the bottom.

Librarians' Index to the Internet,   http://www.lii.org
Consult the Databases retrieved from any broad subject search. Search Yahoo!, http://www.yahoo.com/  for directories and search tools in specialized subjects.  In Yahoo! search box, search for the phrases-in-quotes: "searching the web" "search engines". In Yahoo! search box, search for the phrases-in-quotes: "searching the web" "web directories" Search Yahoo! for the phrase-in-quotes "searching the web" and then sub-search on the results page, restricting to search only in "web searching" for any topic you wish (e.g., women, business, stocks, music, environment...)

Lycos Searchable Databases, http://dir.lycos.com/Reference/Searchable_Databases
Growing new list of searchable databases, itself browseable not searchable. Available at the Lycos home page (www.lycos.com), down under Featured Guides Sections Reference.

Recommended for Biomedical Researchers-

PUBMED http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
IndMED http://indmed.nic.in

 
5. Virtual Reference Libraries

Online dictionaries, handbooks, directories, indexes, etc.

Example:
UCB Library Reference Resources,   http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/search/
The Internet Public Library Reference Center,  http://www.ipl.org/ref/
Research-it, http://www.iTools.com/research-it


 

6. Locating Peers and Experts through online discussion groups

Newsgroups (a.k.a. Usenet) are accessed and viewed on the WWW. Netscape supports viewing Newsgroups. Although some academic disciplines prefer Newsgroups over Listserv-type e-mail groups as their scholarly forum, Newsgroups tend to be popular, fun, alternative.

Example:

Deja.com (a full-text search tool),  http://www.deja.com -- a specialized database just for searching Newsgroups.  If you direct searches to "newsgroups" or "usenet" in any of the major search engines (like Infoseek, Hotbot, Excite) you are searching the DejaNews database.  It is easier to search directly from DejaNews. Alta Vista alone has its own newsgroup database. SEARCH TIPS(some of the many options): Browse by subject category or "community" at left.  Search for terms in newsgroup discussions or communities in the search box. Power Search allows you to search on authors' names and other fields. Be prepared to read a lot of help screens and spend time getting up to speed in the world of searching for and using Usenet Newsgroups. Try the User Tour.

Mailing List Finding Aids (such as Listserv® lists) Mailing lists work through your e-mail, not on the WWW. You subscribe and receive mail from the group.

Example:
Liszt, http://www.liszt.com.  Provides a fairly searchable database of Listservs.

 
 

7. Finding Individual People's Pages and E-Addresses

Examples -

Ahoy!,   http://centauri-prime.cs.washington.edu:6060/
Academic-based finder for people's e-addresses and home pages. SEARCH TIPS: Enter names and as much information as you know in search boxes. For help, click on the name just above each search box.
Bigfoot, http://www.bigfoot.com
General Web and e-mail people finder.
Four 11,  http://people.yahoo.com
Another general Web and e-mail people finder.

 
8. Links to Research Grant Information pages

Examples -

U.S. Dept. of Education Grant Award Actions FY 1999, http://web99.ed.gov/grant/grtawd99.nsf Change the date in the URL for other years (e.g., grtawd98.nsf)
Community of Science,   http://www.cos.com/
Includes funding opportunities database, Federally funded research with the U.S., and more.
Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS),   http://www.library.uiuc.edu/iris/
Links to international research resources, U.S. research resources. Institutions and researchers outside the U. of Illinois may subscribe to IRIS. (UCB is a subscriber.)
Knowledge Express,  http://www.knowledgeexpress.com/
Database containing collections for business and research development and technology communications -- for individuals, organizations, businesses, and universities.

Links to other types of grant information -

The Grants Web, http://sra.rams.com/cws/sra/resource.htm
Research Administrators Resources Network. Government, private, and general resources and policies.

More Resources for Keeping Up To Date -

Search Engine Watch, http://www.searchenginewatch.com
Service that monitors search engines and directories. Most of the site is offered free to the public.
The Botspot, http://www.botspot.com/
Focus on Artificial Intelligence. Amazing collection of "bots" -- index by type of tool to advanced, often multi-purpose, multi-site, multi-resource, and interactive tools for locating information about the Web, advanced Web programming, Web searching -- both in general and with specific goals in mind (e.g., shopping, news, classified ads, software, and much more).

Subscribe to what's new at the Librarians' Index to the Internet. Tune in to this actively and selectively growing database of many of the most interesting and useful sites, databases, and other resources.