THINK LIKE A LIBRARIANDatabase tips & tricks
MILI 2009LeAnn Suchy, Metronet
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabi_k/3546466770/
Visible versus Invisible Web “Visible Web” (often called “Surface
Web”) Stuff you find via search engines like
Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
“Invisible Web” (often called “Hidden Web” or “Deep Web”)
Things not searchable by regular search engines
Subscription databases
Visible Web
Last year Google indexed its trillionth webpage (1 trillion unique URLs)
Google has indexed about half of the Visible Web
Results are relevancy ranked Over 200 factors determine relevancy Popularity is a large factor Hits a page gets is another factor
Invisible Web
Invisible Web is anywhere from 100 to 500 times bigger than the Visible Web (or even bigger?)
Search engines like Google can’t index the Invisible Web because:
Items found via a query Passwords
Invisible Web is important Search engine relevancy rankings for
Visible Web sometimes aren’t all that relevant
Some tools to help navigate Visible Web to find better resources:
Librarians Internet Index: http://lii.org/ Infomine: http://infomine.ucr.edu/
More for higher ed, but might be helpful
Invisible Web is way larger than Visible Web and has a lot more credible sources
How do I find Invisible Web? Think DATABASES
Database through the government, libraries and state of MN
Databases through your school
Today we’re focusing on: ELM databases (ELM = Electronic Library for MN)
Searchasaurus
Kids Search
InfoTrac Junior Edition
InfoTrac Senior Edition
¡Informe!
Britannica Online
ProQuest Newsstand Complete
CAMIO
Many more
Almost 50 ELM databases
More databases available through your school, so talk to your media specialist
And now, think like a librarian…
Before recommending, explore Ask these questions of the database:
What type of content is provided? How many publications are included? Years? How frequently is it updated? What navigational tools are provided? Are there tutorials? A help section? Search
tips? How are search results displayed? Can I save, email or print articles? RSS feeds? Which students would best be served by this?
These questions and more are on Database Exploration Checklist
Before recommending, explore
Detailed Search
Search like a librarian
Search results
Subject versus Keyword
Limiting to type of file
Individual record
Between now and our meeting Check out the information under
Month 3 in the wiki, including the Database Exploration Checklist worksheet
Go into the ELM databases (or databases linked from your school library) and use the worksheet to analyze a couple databases
Blog about your experiences using the databases
When we meet in-person: Be ready to tell us about databases you think might be helpful for you and/or your students