Finding Good Information on the Web

1
Finding Good Information on the Web

• Peggy DAdamo
• The INFO Project
• June 2006

2
Remember

• Think about and decide
• what kind of information
• how much information
• before you start looking

3
Use critical thinking skills

• Make sure you are in the right place.
• When in doubt, doubt.
• Consider the source.
• Look at details.
• Distinguish Web pages from documents found on the
  Web.

Source "The ICYouSee Guide to Critical Thinking
about What You See on the Web" (2000)
www.ithaca.edu/library/Training/hott.html
4
Consider the web site extension

• .com - commercial
• .edu - educational
• .gov - government
• .mil - military
• .net - network
• .org - organization
• .uk, .fi, .jp, etc. country codes

5
Search Tips

• Use the search button on your toolbar
• Read the search tips
• Try Advanced Search
• Use the find similar sites feature
• Put the most important word or terms first
• Be specific
• Avoid common words like a the
• Try more than one search tool
• Refine your search

6
More Search Tips

• Phrase searching
• Use quotation marks around a phrase
• quality of care NOT quality of care
• Truncation or word variants
• Use an asterisk at the end of a word
• Contracept (includes contraception,
  contraceptive, contraceptives, etc.)

7
Boolean Searching

• AND or narrows the search
• Ghana AND polio
• Ghana polio
• OR or / expands the search
• Ghana OR polio
• Ghana / polio
• NOT or - limits the search
• Ghana NOT polio
• Ghana polio

8
Search Engines

• Google www.google.com
• Ask.com ask.com
• All-the-Web www.alltheweb.com
• MSN Search www.msnsearch.com
• Yahoo Search search.yahoo.com

9
Meta Search Engines

• Dogpile www.dogpile.com
• Mamma www.mamma.com
• Vivisimo www.vivisimo.com
• Search.com www.search.com

10
Directories

• Yahoo www.yahoo.com
• The Open Directory dmoz.org/

11
The Invisible or Deep Web

• Cannot be retrieved using search engines
• Searchable databases
• Excluded web pages
• Content of some dynamic web sites
• Finding the invisible web
• Complete Planet www.completeplanet.com
• Searchability www.searchability.com

12
Virtual Libraries

• Infomine infomine.ucr.edu/
• Internet Public Library ipl.sils.umich.edu
• Librarians Index to the Internet lii.org
• WWW Virtual Library vlib.org/

13
Health and Biomedical Databases

• PubMed www.pubmed.gov
• NLM Gateway gateway.nlm.nih.gov
• EMBASE www.embase.com
• Scopus www.scopus.com

14
Specialized Databases

• Cochrane www.cochrane.org
• POPLINE www.popline.org
• ERIC www.eric.ed.gov
• Cancerlit www.cancer.gov/search/pubmed/
• OneSource www.infoforhealth.org

15
Health Directories and Portals

• Development Gatewaywww.developmentgateway.org
• Hardin MD www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md
• Reproductive Health Gatewaywww.rhgateway.org
• Health on the Net www.hon.ch

16
Free access to online journals

• Bioline www.bioline.org.br
• Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL)
  www.eifl.net
• Findarticles.com www.findarticles.com
• FreeMedicalJournals.com www.freemedicaljournals.c
  om
• Health Internetwork (HINARI) www.healthinternetwo
  rk.org
• Programme for the Enhancement of Research
  Information (PERI) www.inasp.info/peri/

17

• Homework
• Do a search on PUBMED and limit it to free full
  text links.
• Do a search on POPLINE or OneSource and order at
  least one document from POPLINE.