USING WEB FOR RESEARCH

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USING WEB FOR RESEARCH

• York College Library
• Information Literacy Series

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CONTENT

• What is World Wide Web (WWW)?
• Whats available on the Web?
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Website evaluation criteria
• Sample search
• Tricks and tips

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THE INTERNET WORLD WIDE WEB

• The Internet
• Electronic mail
• Telnet
• File Transfer Protocol
• Gopher
• The World Wide Web
• More...

• World Wide Web
• An universal hypertext system that uses the
  Internet as its transport mechanism. HTTP
  (hypertext transport protocol) servers allow
  text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed
  together.

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WHATS AVAILABLE?(Take Yahoo! As An Example)

• Yahoo! Categories
• Arts Humanities
• Business Economy
• Computers Internet
• Education
• Entertainment
• Government
• Health

• News Media
• Recreation Sports
• Reference
• Regional
• Science
• Social Science
• Society Culture
• and more...

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ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

• Advantages
• Hypertext
• Timeliness
• Accessibility
• OPACs
• Money saving
• Back-up copies

• Disadvantages
• World Wide Wait
• System crash
• Coverage
• Reliability
• Inconsistency

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WEBSITE EVALUATION CRITERIA

• Authority Whos behind the site?
• Accuracy Info filtered by editors?
• Currency When was the last update?
• Coverage Full text?
• Accessibility Fee-based? Text version?
• Design Easy to understand?
• Convenience Print-friendly? Email?
• Content Mission clear?

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SAMPLE SEARCH

• Search Engines Yahoo!, Alta Vista
• Books Amazon.com
• OPAC NYU, QBPL
• Directories InfoSpace
• Company Info Yahoo! Finance
• At your choice

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TRICKS TIPS

• Be Patient
• Organize bookmarks
• Acrobat Reader (PDF)
• Download format
• Right-click
• Passive Search v.s. Active Search

• Site Built-in Search Engine
• Find in Page in Netscape
• Copy and Paste
• Clear Cache periodically
• More...

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CONGRATULATIONS

• Youve successfully completed World Wide Web
  (WWW) tutorial!
• Thanks for attending!
• Enjoy using the Web for your research!
• Please submit the Library Survey Form.