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Learn how to use and find Search Engines,
syntax, TIPS, RESOURCES, AND HISTORY

Study Finds Net Users Poor at Search Strategies

Syntax

 

This syntax works on Yahoo, MSN.
example: site:gov newspapers
Limits to only sites in the .gov domain.
baseball site:microsoft.com
limits to pages from Microsoft that contain the word baseball.

Google Search Technique:
Use the syntax filetype. filetype:(txt) or filetype:pdf
To include this in your search type +filetype:pdf
to exclude it type -filetype:pdf
Example:if you were looking for music information for a certain type of music, but wanted to avoid PDF music forms or documents, you could create a query like: "The Band" wheels on fire +filetype:txt

If you wanted to find all the .edu pages about Karen Ellis. You will need to use syntaxes. Look at 3 examples below

Google allows the following search:

allintitle:"karen ellis" site:edu brings you to a Karen Ellis but it is not me.

To find me use this one

intitle:karen intitle:ellis

Warning: when you are using more than two syntaxes you have to be careful sometimes using

allintitle: and allinurl:

together can cause search errors. Instead, use

intitle: and inurl:

This query works:
intitle:karen intitle:ellis inurl:cyberpg site:com

I suggest you do all this with your own name and then also try using your email address and see what shows up for you :-) - Karen Ellis

TIPS

 

You can delete most spam and blogs by adding -com to your search terms. All major search engines limit you to 1,000 visible results. All page estimates are only only estimates and FAR from accurate, they will very greatly from minute to minute.

TO FIND WEBSITES AND THE PAGES INSIDE THE SITE. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A ROBOTS TEXT FILE IN YOUR WEBSITE DIRECTORY TO HELP A ROBOT FIND YOU SITE AND TO TELL THE ROBOT WHAT PAGES YOUR DON'T WANT THE SEARCH ENGINE TO HAVE. Yahoo, Ice rocket, AllTheWeb, Ask Jeeves, Teoma, Lycos, Excite, WebCrawler, Vivisimo, MSN, Google, Meta Crawler, Search.Com, Mamma, Dog Pile, Split Search, Twin Search

 

PAUL OTLET The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World

 

By: Kevin Kelly - This French film (with English and German audio tracks) is about Paul Otlet, a Belgian Utopian little known in America. Otlet invented an international classification scheme called Universal Decimal Classification used for books, photographs and other documents. He invented microfilm. He invented the ubiquitous index card catalog used in most libraries. But as he says in the film, "I think in terms of the universal" and his ambitions were much larger. Otlet began organizing existing international organizations into one grand inter-organization -- the Union of International Organizations -- which inspired the League of Nations. His one failure was to build an ultimate World City in Europe, but it was not for a lack of trying.
But his most amazing invention (in retrospect) was his invention of hypertext, multi-media, and the web. He didn't use these words of course. He called it the International Network for Universal Documentation. In his 1934 "Treatise of Documentation" or "The book on the book" he lays it out:

Before our very eyes an immense machinery for intellectual work is being constructed. This machinery will serve as a veritable mechanical and collective brain. A universal publication system condensing all of the fragmentary and individual data and kept constantly up to date must be assembled for each branch of the sciences and other activities. This network must link production centers distributors and users. Any person with data to be made known or propositions to present or defend will be able to do so. Or with a minimum of effort and a guarantee of quality safety will be able to obtain any information.

His concept of hyperlinking is illustrated in the film in this YouTube clip from this film:

Otlet outlined these grand visions of easily accessible knowledge and interconnected data many decades before Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson first articulated them. And more importantly, he actually built an analog hypertext system. As this really amazing film makes clear, he collected and cataloged as much of the world's bibliographic knowledge as he could and then cross-indexed it. Rows and rows of card trays. At his peak he had 17 million index cards, and a system of search and retrieval.
Later in the same monograph Otlet writes, "Phonographs, radio, television, telephone -- these instruments taken as substitutes for the book will in fact become the new book, the most powerful work for the diffusion of human thoughts. This will be the radiated library, and the televised book."
The universal book was a part of the universal city, which was a part of the universal repository of all human knowledge, or what he called the Mundaneum. This was to contain, "All books, all articles, all memories, all published information. These would become chapters, sections, lines of a single and immense book, the book of universal science. It is this one book made up of individual books that must be made available to all."

Still his vision expanded. "This connection would be unaffected by distance...and would become an annex to the brain, a sort of appended exodermic organ." Information architect Alex Wright calls Otlet our "forgotten forefather." He offers a great closing quote from Otlet:

Everything in the universe, and everything of man, would be registered at a distance as it was produced. In this way a moving image of the world will be established, a true mirror of his memory. From a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen. In this way, everyone from his armchair will be able to contemplate creation, as a whole or in certain of its parts.

Otlet's early universalism was part of the reason he became forgotten and obscure. When the Nazis invaded Belgium in WWII they were intensely skeptical of his pacifism and internationalism. They destroyed his archive. Because he wrote in French, and none of his major works have yet been translated into English, his work was never part of the standard English history of the web.

This short film will help to change that. A shorter documentary in French and English by his biographer, W. Boyd Raward, are available for free streaming on Open Source Movies, gives a few additional details of how his system worked, but this story is incomplete.

The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World
(L'Homme qui voulait classer le Monde)
By Francoise Levie
2002, 60 min.

Available from Memento Productions

(Note: The only way to purchase this film is to send 35 Euros in cash to the filmmakers. No credit card nor PayPal.  It will take a few weeks delivery. Sadly I was unable to play this DVD on my DVD player. This may be because the video is in PAL, or more likely because I have an old player. It was viewable on a computer DVD.)

 

 

Volume 7 Number 25 August 25, 1999 ISSN 1068-2341
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n25.html
August 30, 1999
People searching Internet-accessible databases are not using effective search strategies and are not finding the best and most relevant material. In a study recently published in the peer reviewed journal Education Policy Analysis Archives, researchers found that most people are conducting few searches, poorly formulating their questions, not using available tools and are examining only a few potential resources. "End-users are not going beyond the first page of hits and are not looking for the highest quality resources," said study co-author Lawrence M.Rudner, Director of The ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment at the University of Maryland College of Library and Information Services.
The typical patron spends 6 minutes looking for information, composes 2 or 3 queries and examines only 3 or 4 potentially relevant citations or "hits." The typical query is composed of only a word or phrase with less than half the queries containing an "OR" to incorporate alternative terms. Only one-third of the patrons use the available thesaurus. In contrast, expert searchers typically spend 20 to 30 minutes and compose 3 to 6 complicated queries usually with 4 alternative terms.
The study examined the search strategies of 3,420 patrons of an on-line version of the Educational Resources Information Center database. The results are consistent with a growing body of literature from a wide variety of databases. While search quality is dependent on the individual, most searchers could be doing better. Even the studies that note a high level of user satisfaction observed that users rely on overly simple searches, make frequent errors, and fail to attain comprehensive results. The authors encourage people searching for themselves to learn and employ advanced search strategies or take advantage of expert intermediaries when available.
The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a national information system which provides ready access to the extensive body of education-related literature. Established in 1966, ERIC is a widely respected leader in the library and information science communities.
Contact: Lawrence M. Rudner
rudner@ericae.net
800 464-3742 301 405-7449
ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation
College of Library and Information Services
1129 Shriver Laboratory
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

 

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