HIT: Boolean searching tips and websites

[The Fontaines <mfontaine245944MI@COMCAST.NET>]

These are the answers that I received on the listserv. I removed the names of those 
who sent it for privacy purposes. Thank you to those who sent the info!

#1   I have been using www.worldsofsearching.org to teach my 6th graders how to
              search.  I highly recommend it.


#2  The "cheat sheets" offered under the help menu for www.altavista.com gave me 
quite a few really cool tips.  See also this site by Jamie McKenzie who's  a      
library science guru making the circuit)  www.fno.org for many helpful tips.  I'm 
linking this site to our library home page because it has an on-line "primer" about 
Boolean logic with diagrams:    http://library.albany.edu/internet/boolean.html



#3  I actually print out and distribute this page, then I have the students do it!  
It uses altavista, which may not be considered the most comprehensive search engine 
now. It's getting a little out of date now, because many search engines now 
"assume" quotation marks, but otherwise, I've found it very helpful. As a matter of 
fact, I'll be using it again on February 5.
 http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/sevensteps.html
HTH


I hope this helps you some.

#4  http://library.cc.va.us/tutorial/firstsearch/boolean.htm

#5 http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/criteria.html

#6 http://help.altavista.comadv_search/syntax

#7  This came from Phalbe Henriksen
This may be of marginal help since it's for adult library staff, but I recently 
re-taught our public library staff Boolean searching and how to choose a search 
engine. (I like to do this once a year or so.) I'll copy and paste the long memo 
below this message. I also copied a University of Albany library website on 
searching to give to the staff. I'll give you the URL so you can look at it. I like 
this "primer" because it has a suggested list of search engines grouped by Boolean 
feature:

<http://library.albany.edu/internet/boolean.html>

However, I came across this site by searching "Boolean" on the internet. I got a 
lot of hits and saw this one first or second and liked it and didn't go any 
further. You may find one you like better if you do more searching than I did.

Here's the memo:

We need to talk about search engines and service to the public. When the public 
come to us for help searching the web, or when we offer our services to people to 
help them, we should be giving the best possible help. People look to us as being 
the experts and we need to try to meet those expectations. Anytime you use a search 
engine, go to the "advanced search" or "power search" screen and search from there. 
Anyone can search on the basic search page. We should be better than "anyone."

 I want everyone to go through the exercises I'm explaining here so you'll know 
what I'm talking about.


METACRAWLER

For a long time, I considered Metacrawler the best search engine. I have since 
changed my mind, but Metacrawler does do some good things: it allows you to choose 
how you want to see the hits arranged and the people that work for Metacrawler try 
to find the best sites that will give you answers to your query quickly. I would 
like for all of you to be familiar with Metacrawler, so please do this:

1) Go to <www.metacrawler.com>.

2) Search the term "civil war" (without the quotation marks) three times, with the 
radio button "all" clicked (that's the default), then "any" and then "phrase." 
Write down how many hits each of these searches finds.

3) Click on the "Power Search" tab.

4) Search the term "civil war" three times with any of those radio buttons clicked, 
but click on the "View Results" radio buttons to see how the results can be 
arranged.

5) On the "Power Search" page, click on the "Tools & Tips" tab and read some of the 
help pages linked there.

6) Go back to "Power Search."

7) Click on the down arrow in the text box that reads "The Web" and choose each of 
the other searches and see what results you get from searching "civil war."


GOOGLE

Google is a more up-to-date search engine and can search over 2 billion pages in an 
instant. It has become my favorite search engine. Please do the following:

1) Go to <www.google.com>.

2) Search the term "civil war" (without the quotation marks). Write down the number 
of hits you get for each search.

3) Go back to the search screen. Click on "Advanced Search" to the right of the 
text box.

4) Search "civil war" in the "all" text box, "exact phrase," and "any." Write down 
the number of hits you get for each search.

5) Search the word "civil" in any one of the top three text boxes and "war" in the 
"without" text box. Write down the number of hits you get.

6) Go back to "Advanced Search."

7) Click on each of the down buttons in the "Language," "File Format," "Date," and 
"Occurrences" text boxes and look at all the options.

8) Type "civil war" in any one of the top three "Find Results" text boxes and 
search all of the "Date" and "Occurrences" options. Write down the number of hits 
you get.

8) Go back to "Advanced Search."

9) Either click on the "Advanced Search Tips" hotlink at the top right of the 
"Advanced Search" page or read the attached sheets.

9) Please read the attached sheets on Boolean searching. At the end, there is a 
chart that shows you what Boolean searches are available in what search engines. 
Please play around with some of them.

This is all very complicated so I'm doing this as a memo, but please feel free to 
ask me questions.

END OF MEMO

I use the term "civil war" for two reasons. One because we're in the south and the 
other because "civil" and "war" get so many hits other than the American War 
Between the States. I think it really shows how different searches obtain different 
results. You may want to find another term.

I like Metacrawler for reasons I didn't point out in the memo. One is that they 
don't have the overwhelming number of hits that Google gets, and that can be a good 
thing. The other is that when I view the results by "site," the URLs the patron or 
the staff person has looked at will be in red and the others in blue, so I can get 
a picture of what's been done very quickly and move on from there. That makes my 
searching a real "rescue" for patrons, or patrons and staff, who are having a hard 
time and it makes me look like a "miracle worker"!!!

I helped some of the staff through this exercise, so there are things I pointed out 
that are not written in the memo. One of the most important, IMHO, is that one of 
the advanced searches has the same number of hits as the basic search. I point out 
that this shows that *that* particular search, then, is the default basic search.


_____________________________________________________


Tami Fontaine         mfontaine245944MI@comcast.net
MLIS student at Wayne State University
prospective librarian at Plymouth Christian Academy

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