Transcript Smart Searching, part one - Maywood Academy High School

Smart Searching, part one
There is more out there than the “free web”
Can your favorite
search engine find all
there is to find on the
web?
It finds all
we need
to find,
right?
Think again
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Search engines access a relatively small part
of the web, known as the “free web”
A large portion of the web, inaccessible to
the search engine, is known as the “invisible
web”
So, what’s not on the free web?
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Around 90% of the books on our shelves
The full text on many magazine &
newspaper articles
Expansive reference books, like literary
criticism, in-depth biographies, & historical
works
Why can’t it all be free? (some things you
need to know about the publishing biz)
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Serious authors are in the business of
making money for their hard work
Publishers expect a return on their work
Copyright laws protect “intellectual
property”
And remember, your teachers expect
quality
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Material from subscription services is likely
to be viewed by your teachers as more
authoritative
You may have to defend some of the sources
your find on the “free web”
You may want to dig deeper.
I’d like to see an example!!
There are some “free web”
databases!!!
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For example: you want to find some
pictures of the Battle of Gettysburg
You may find some good ones through an
image search on your favorite search engine
But did you know there is a database
devoted to civil war photographs
Search engines cannot pick up
those photos of Gettysburg in that
rich database because the database
content is not searchable until you
are actually in the database.
Try this -
Selected Civil War photographs
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html
But how do you find a database like
that?
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Use the word database with your search
terms
Use a tool like Librarians index (lii.org) to
identify specialized databases
But there is more to the web than
free databases!!!
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LAUSD’s Digital Library with over 30
subscription databases.
http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/page?_page
id=33,245998&_dad=ptl&_schema=PTL_EP
Gale e-books, which is a collection of all
Gale reference books you can access from
home.
http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/maywo
odhs
This is the good stuff

Ignoring these databases is like asking your
parents to get premium cable and watching
basic cable stations all the time.
The “free web” vs. Databases
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Use the “free web” or
internet when you:
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Are willing to evaluate the
web site’s content
Want other world-wide
sites
Want government
information
Want to go to a specific
web site
Want information on a
unique topic

Use databases when you
want:
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Newspaper articles
Magazine articles
Encyclopedia articles
Biographical information
Statistical information
Authentic information
Works Cited
Los Angeles Public Library. The internet vs. Databases.
Valenza, Joyce. Uncovering the Invisible Web. Springfield
Township Virtual Library.
<http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/powerpoint/freeweb.p
pt>