 Searching, Revisited
By Ria Mastromatteo, Educational Technology Consultant ()
Where do you fall on the "great searcher" continuum? The greatest searchers plan. They use good strategies. They refine their searches and they keep up to date. The focus of this article is the last item, keeping up to date. So, what's new in "searching the Web?"
Hidden Web
The hidden Web is the part of the Web that is generally inaccessible through search engines. It involves Web-based databases, full-text articles and files not in HTML. If you want a hotlist of "hidden Web" sites, go to http://wneo.org/hotlists/hiddenweb.htm.
"Horizontal" Search Engines
Horizontal search engines use "human-type" abilities when they categorize, analyze language and group related items together. Try some of these:
Vivisimo This is my favorite search engine for kids. It organizes the results into topics and subtopics. http://vivisimo.com
Guidebeam Guidebeam extracts and infers phrases from documents and puts them into hyperlinked categories of data. http://www.guidebeam.com
Teoma Teoma is owned by Ask Jeeves. It organizes the searches into General Results, which ranks by popularity; Refine, which clusters the topics allowing students to narrow their search; and Resources, which links to learning "communities." http://teoma.com
A new look at some "old dogs"
Alta Vista Alta Vista now gives parallel terms on the right-hand side of the screen so that your search can be narrowed.
http://www.altavista.com
Google Google and Alta Vista now assume an AND connector so your search is narrowed automatically when more than one descriptor is used. Google now lists by category, gives pertinent news and shows sponsored links (and so much more!).
New Technologies
KartOO This really unique approach clusters results in a graphic organizer. It's really a novel strategy. http://kartoo.com
Surfwax Surfwax allows you to customize, save, store and share documents from wherever you are on the Web. http://surfwax.com
Gurunet This is another unique search engine. It has a "One Click Fact Finder" which lets you click on any word in any document you're working on and get information about it. It must be downloaded and there are both free and pay versions. http://gurunet.com
Try not to rely on just one search engine. Want help knowing what search engine to use? Try How to Choose a Search Engine at http://library.albany.edu/Internet/choose.html.
Searching is such fun. I always consider it a challenge to find what I'm looking for!
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