HIT:Search Engines (long)

[Liz & Jim Springer <springer@CANUCK.COM>]

A big THANK YOU to all who responded to my survey.  I've compiled the
answers, as best I could, as promised.  If anyone needs any more detail my
address is springer@canuck.com.  For those of you who asked me questions
with your responses, be patient with me.  I'll be responding directly to you
in the next few days.

Thanks again!

I received a total of 43 responses, but a couple of people didn't answer
every question, so the numbers don't always add up.

1. Please list grade levels of students using your library.
        Everything from K-12+
                K-5             approximately 19
                Gr. 6-9        approximately 10
                Gr. 9-12+    approximately 15

2. Is your school library connected to the Internet?

       No      17
       Yes     28

3. If the answer to Question 2 is No, are there any plans to connect the
library to the Internet

        By  June 1996                           8
        By September 1996                  1
        By January 1997                       3
        Longer (please specify when)     2 (within 2 years, within 5 years)
        No plans                                   3

4. If there are no plans to connect to the Internet, please indicate the
reason(s):

        Lack of Funding                                         3
        Concern about student access                    2
        Internet not viewed as valuable resource     0
        Other

5. Who conducts searches on the Internet?  Please check all that apply.

        Library staff
        Teaching staff
        Students

        25 responses.  3 library staff only, 5 library and teaching staff,
                               17 library and teaching staff, and students.

6.  Do you use a

        Text-based interface? (e.g. Lynx)
                If yes please specify which one.
        Graphical user interface? (e.g. Mosaic)
                If yes please specify which one.

        26 responses
        4 text only
        7 both
        11 graphical only

        Of the 11 using text - 8 Lynx, 1 MacWeb, 1 Pine/Elm, 1 ?
        Of the 22 using graphical - 19 Netscape, 2 Mosaic, 1 ?

7. How many search engines (e.g. Infoseek) do you use in an average week?
        None            4
        1-2               5
        3-4             11
        5-6               4
        More than 6     2       (12, 10-15)

8. If you use search engines, please list the three you use most, starting
with most frequent and ending with least frequent.

Mentioned 1st
        7       Yahoo
        5       Altavista
        3       Webcrawler
        3       Lycos
        2       Infoseek
        1       Excite
        1       Inktomi
        1       All-In-One

Mentioned in any order
      13        Yahoo
      13        Webcrawler
      10        Altavista
      10        Infoseek
        9        Lycos
        3        Excite
        1        Inktomi
        1        All-In-One
        1        Lynx

9.  How many times per week do you use metasearches (e.g. All-In-One)?
    (Metasearches allow you to access many different search engines from one
site)

        None            18
        1-5                 2
        6-10               2
        11-15             0
        16-20             2
        More than 20 0

    If you use metasearches, which do you normally use?
        4 Yahoo, 1 All-In-One, 1 ?

10. How many times per week do you use multithreaded searches (e.g.
SavvySearch)?
    (Multithreaded searches allow you to search a number of search engines
simultaneously)

        None            18
        1-5                 2
        6-10               2
        11-15             0
        16-20             0
         More than 20 (please specify how many)

    If you use multithreaded searches, which do you normally use?
        All 4 use SavvySearch

11. Whether you use single engine searches, metasearches or multithreaded
searches, please rank the following in importance to you, with #1 being the
most important and #5 being the least important:

        Instructions clear and easy to use (for library staff).
        Allows Boolean or other operators.
        Indexes more than URL, title and headings.
        Results page easy to use (eg gives file size, abstract, date)
        Relevance of hits.

# times picked as   1            2            3            4            5

Instructions            8            4            4            2            3
Boolean                 3            3            5            6            4
Index                     0            0            8            3          10
Results page          1             5           3             9           3
Relevance              9            9            1            1            1

One respondent mentioned speed was a factor and said AltaVista was fast.

12. Please add any comments you feel are relevant to the way you search  the
WWW, or further rationale for why you use the engines you do.

I am a real beginner on the Net and am learning right along with the
students.  I like Yahoo because of its subject area breakdown and can often
get right to what I need thru this.  It also allows me a multithreaded
approach as it lists other search engines to try.

My searching seems to be pretty basic and I tend to follow a lot of links
after finding a couple of good sources.

I haven't had time to analyze the efficiency of the various search engines,
but this would be valuable to high school students as they don;t have much
patience and want fast results (as do teachers).  Looking forward to the
results of your research.  My time on the Internet is really hit and miss,
sanwiched between othe heavy demands, but I think its important for library
media teachers to be able to give guidance both to students and teachers so
that the resources on the Internet can be best utilized within the curriculum.

We are just starting on "the net" and are in the learning stage.  Kids will
go on line when the acceptable use policy is finally ratified in our
district...which we hope will be soon.  We also see the internet more as a
communications tool than a research tool.  Our hopes are to connect with the
other schools, projects...etc.  So far, it is still easier to find
information in books.

Text based searching is time consuming and in my one-person operation, I
have neither the time nor pressing need to do this in my school.  We have
been promised full graphics with Netscape or something similar on our
upgraded service by the end of summer and this will probably change.  We
also have need of further training in how to access what is available.

Most students use what appears first when pushing the Netsearch button on
Netscape.

Liz Springer
Student, Library & Information Technology
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
springer@canuck.com