With the rapid expansion of the Internet, scholarly research has shifted from paper to the digital domain. There are great advantages to having a world-wide searchable database, but there is also the danger of getting lost in mountains of information.

There are a number of tools available that make the Internet Library easier to navigate. These range from specialized search functions that can be used on the major search engines to software tools that can help to organize the information you have gathered from the Internet Library.

Internet Library Basics

Most students begin their research projects by looking up information on the web. This is a good idea because the Internet has replaced many of the functions of the traditional book-based library.

The new Internet Library has instant access to millions of articles, research reports, and statistics. With this amount of data, however, it's easy to become overwhelmed. So the first challenge of the Internet Library is to find what you need.

Search Techniques

Most of the major search engines have extensive search tools which help you to narrow down the results of a search query. These search functions are essential for effective use of the Internet Library because they can eliminate useless results and narrow down your search criteria.

The "Advanced Search" on Google and other search engines is a start, but there are also ways to utilize many of the advanced functions in a standard search. Searches can be narrowed with the use of operands such as the plus or minus sign.

Here are few operands and their meaning:

1. Forcing the inclusion and exclusion of search terms
• A plus sign (+) in front of a search term makes it mandatory
• A negative sign (-) in front of a word excludes pages with that word
• e.g. +germany +history -genealogy
2. Using wildcards (*) (not supported by Google)
   
• e.g. german* will find german, germans, germany, etc.
  
3. Searching for phrases
• Phrases are defined with quotation marks
• e.g. "history of germany"
  
4. Looking for ranges of numbers (only in Google)
   
• Use two periods between numbers to set a range of numbers
• e.g. 1920..1930
  
5. Looking for synonyms (only in Google)
• The tilde sign (~) will look for the search term and its synonyms
• e.g. ~food ~facts
6. "OR" Search
   
• an uppercase OR between search terms will find pages that include either of the two search terms
• e.g. history london OR paris

When using the Internet Library don't forget to take advantage of special search engines such as Google Scholar. This can be accessed by clicking on the "more" link on the main page of Google. Google Scholar indexes scholarly papers from around the world.

Some websites specializing in scholarly papers restrict their access to paid subscribers. The content of these sites may be indexed by Google Scholar (as well as other search engines) but to see the content you must be a member of the site. Many universities and colleges have access privileges to these sites. You need to check with your school library to obtain an access code.

Next: Organizing Search Results with Firefox

Last update : 12-10-2006 00:33

Keywords : Education, Homework Help, The Internet Library – Learning to Use the Internet as a Research Tool

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