World Wide Web or Library Catalogs and Indexes?

Use library online catalogs and indexes (CRUZCAT and the UCSC Electronic Resources for:

• For detailed academic research questions, try one of the 100 bibliographic databases on the Library Research page first.
• Scholarly, peer-reviewed research
• Information and research more than six years old

Use search engines and the World Wide Web for:

• Current news and political information
• Finding information about businesses, products, people, or organizations

A note on the "Invisible Web" - Millions of Web pages are hidden from Web search engines in databases, subscription services, and nonstandard formats. The library subscribes to hundreds of databases and thousands of online journals not accessible to free search engines. These library resources are great places for academic-level research and give UCSC students and faculty access to the Invisible Web.

These large databases of Web documents are keyword searchable. They're best for researching specific pieces of information or facts. A comparison of search engines and more search tips can be found at the Search Engine Watch Web site.

Basic strategies

• Be specific and describe your topic in detail. Example: los angeles hotels near ucla
• Use quotation marks to indicate a phrase or name. Example: "queen elizabeth I"
• Use the + symbol to include words that must be in the search result. Example: +java +indonesia +exports +oil
• Use the - symbol to exclude words that must not be in the search result. Example: +java +indonesia -"programming language"

Power Searching Tips

Google http://www.google.com/ Title search intitle: Finds pages that contain the specified term(s) in the page title. Example: intitle:berkeley engineering Site search site: Finds pages on the specified Website. Example: mars photos site:nasa.gov OR mars photos -site:cnn.com URL search inurl: Finds pages with the specified address in the url. Example: inurl: whitehouse.gov Link search link: Finds pages with links to the specified address or url. Example: link:www.englishhistory.net Wildcard none - truncation automatic Use Find Similar Check out the Google Tool Bar - Windows and Internet Explorer only Specialized Googles: Uncle Sam and UCSC Search

Altavista http://www.altavista.com Title search title: Finds pages that contain the specified term(s) in the page title. Example: title:berkeley engineering Site search host: Finds pages on the specified Website. Example: mars photos host:nasa.gov OR mars photos -host:cnn.com URL search url: Finds pages with the specified address in the url. Example: url:whitehouse.gov Link search link: Finds pages with links to the specified address or url. Example: link:www.englishhistory.net Like: Finds pages similar to the specified page. Example: like:www.ucsc.edu Wildcard truncation * Use NEAR to search for terms close to but not adjacent to each other Example: women NEAR crime

More search engines:

AlltheWeb - powered by FAST

Vivisimo - a metacrawler that organizes results by category

Metacrawler - the oldest and most popular multi-search engine

Subject Directories and Virtual Libraries

Librarian's Index to the Internet A searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 9,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries.

Infomine A searchable directory of scholarly Websites compiled by UC librarians with information on subjects across many disciplines.

Open Directory The largest human-edited directory of the Web. The database powers the core directory services for many search engines and portals.

Search Systems A collection of public record information.

Specialized Search Engines

Financial Info: Yahoo! Finance

Government: Uncle Sam (from Google) and FirstGov

Legal Issues: FindLaw and Law Crawler

Medical Issues: Medline Plus

News: All the Web News and Altavista News

Newsgroups: Google Groups

Travel: Trip Advisor