Web Finding Tools
Glossary
(Familiarity with the following vocabulary may facilitate your web search.)
- directory: a subject index - an attempt to catalog and organize the web
- meta search engine: uses a single interface to provide simultaneous searching of the most popular search engines
- search engine: uses software programs known as robots, spiders or crawlers to search the web and build a database of sites
- specialized search sites : these are search engines or portals that only search very specific kinds of information (e.g Computer Science or Law)
- webliography: site with lots of links by subject - organized by humans
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Internet Searching Techniques & Helpful Hints
Bare Bones 101: A Basic Tutorial on Searching the Web (University of South Carolina)
Evaluating Web Resources (Widener University)
Evaluating Internet Resources (University at Albany)
Finding Information on the Internet: A TUTORIAL (University of California, Berkeley)
Guide to Effective Searching of the Internet (Visual Metrics Corp)
A Student's Guide to Research with the WWW (St. Louis University)
Dudley Knox Library Internet Guides
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The following represent some of the available search sites organized by category. Many others are available. Suggestions for additions are welcome.
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Search Engines & Search Tools
- Major Search Engines
Broken into various categories, this site provides descriptions and links to the major search engines
- All The Web (FAST Search)
- Alta Vista
- Ask.com
- FAST Search (All The Web)
- Go.com
- Google
- HotBot
- Lycos
- Search Engine Colossus
Search Engine Colossus offers you links to search engines and directories from 198 countries and 60 territories around the world
- Soople
An interface to Google's search engine that makes using its advanced search features easier.
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Meta Search Engines
- Metacrawlers
Broken into various categories, this site provides descriptions and links to the major metacrawlers or engines
- All 4 One MetaSearch
- BigHub
- Dogpile
- Excite
- Internet Sleuth
- Ixquick
- Mamma.com
- Metacrawler
- ProFusion
- QuickBrowse
- Search Enginez
Tools to find people, translations, books and more
- Vivísimo
Searches multiple search engines and organizes the results into meaningful groups.
- Web Crawler
- ZapMeta
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Specialized Search Sites
Government & Military
Multimedia
News
- Alltheweb News
- Google News
Google News presents information culled from approximately 4,000 news sources worldwide and automatically arranged to present the most relevant news first.
- News Search Engines
These search sites provide a better way to search for the latest news stories from hundreds of sources on the web
- Pandia Newsfinder
Provides headlines, summaries and links to articles from some of the best news sites on the Internet, including BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, The Washington Post, NewsHub and Moreover.
- RocketNews
- Yahoo News
Research
- AERADE
Portal to aerospace and defense resources on the Internet
- Business.com
Search engine and directory for business information.
- CiteSeer Scientific Literature Digital Library
CiteSeer is a scientific literature digital library that provides algorithms, techniques, and software that can be used in other digital libraries. CiteSeer indexes Postscript and PDF research articles on the Web.
- Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library
- Engineering Web : the Engineering Search Engine (GLOBALSPEC)
The Engineering Web makes it faster and easier for you to research topics, products, and services
by limiting your search to technical and engineering-related Web sites.
- FindLaw
Topical organization of links to internet legal resources
Help
- Google Book Search
Search the full-text of books.
- Google Scholar
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
- Political Information.com
Searches the political web -- think tanks, public policy, lobby groups and politician web sites
- Regional Search Engines
Organized by world region, these are search engines and directories that are devoted to various countries and regions of the world.
- Science.gov
Science.gov is a gateway to authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. Government agencies, including research and development results.
- SciTechResources.gov
Search thousands of web sites that will provide valuable links to government expertise, services, laboratories, information centers, and other important resources.
- Search4science
Made by scientists for scientists
- Scirus
Internet search tool developed specifically for finding scientific information.
- STINET MultiSearch
A portal to the Deep-Web for Scientific & Technical Information.
- The Virtual Chase : Legal Research on the Internet (Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP)
Other
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The Invisible Web
- CompletePlanet
Locate search engines and databases on the web
- Direct Search
Direct Search is a growing compilation of links to the search interfaces of resources that contain data not easily or entirely searchable/accessible from general search tools like Alta Vista, Google, and Hotbot.
- FedStats
FedStats provides access to official statistical information available to the public from the Federal Government. Use FedStats to track economic and population trends, education, health care costs, aviation safety, foreign trade, energy use, farm production, and more. Access official statistics collected and published by more than 100 Federal agencies without having to know in advance which agency produces them. All of the statistical information available through FedStats is maintained and updated solely by Federal agencies on their own web servers.
- IncyWincy: The Invisible Web Search Engine
- The Invisible Web Directory
Directory of resources not visible to general-purpose search engines
- Invisible Web: What it is, Why it exists, How to find it, and Its inherent ambiguity (U.C. Berkeley)
- Those Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Revealed (Rider University)
- Secrets From the Deep: Mining Government Information From the Invisible Web
Continuing Education class presented by Greta E. Marlatt at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference, Los Angeles, June 8, 2002
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Subject Directories & Webliographies
- Air War College Gateway to Internet Resources
- Digital Librarian
A librarian's choice of the best of the Web.
- Infomine
Scholarly Internet Resource Collections
- Internet Public Library
- Librarian's Index to the Internet
- Look Smart
- Lycos' Top 5%
- Maritime History on the Internet
A guide to doing maritime history research online.
- Science.gov
Science.gov provides a gateway to information resources at the U.S. government science agencies. It contains selected authoritative science Web sites and databases of technical reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, and other published materials.
- Scout Report
The Internet Scout Project, funded through the National Science Foundation, is designed to guide U.S. higher education to quality electronic resources. A compendium of over 10,000 full-text searchable Scout Report summaries, with 3700 entries listed by 37 LC-indexed subjects.
- Search.com
- Virtual Information Center
UCB & Internet Resources by Academic Discipline
- WWW Virtual Library
- Yahoo!
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