1. The Library and the Internet: Complementary Research Tools
Research Methods & Data College of Advancing Studies
Brendan Rapple

2. Library Resources versus Internet Resources
“Library resources” and “internet resources” -- really a false dichotomy.
A great proportion of library resources are available on the web.
The parameters of a “library” and “library or information research” are increasingly blurred.
Millions of scholarly web sites have nothing to do with libraries.
We should remember that most serious research necessitates utilization of a library’s databases as well as resources on the web.

3. The Library and the Web . . .
A vast amount of material potentially valuable for research is freely available on the web.
Confining one’s research material to what libraries purchase is certainly poor research practice.
11/10/2018

4. Not Easy to Use the Library
Today’s library is very challenging due to
the digital revolution
the information explosion
the resultant embarrassment of choice,
the myriad ways to access information.
Many libraries point to hundreds of databases.
Much database searching is not particularly intuitive.
Few databases are as inviting as Google, Amazon, or Netflix.
11/10/2018

5. Usage of Google People like it: it’s powerful and often effective.
Seems easy (perhaps deceptively easy) to use.
Still, a common problem is a sole reliance on Google.
Consequent neglect of a library’s resources and databases.
11/10/2018

6. 11/10/2018 Chronicle of Higher Education (Copyright)

7. Is Google Used Efficiently and Effectively?
How often is Google’s advanced searching capability utilized?
How many click on Google’s MORE link which provides more focused searching by
Catalogs
Directory
Images
Maps
Finance
News
Patents and a host of other options.
11/10/2018

8. Google Scholar
Though not as focused as many “library” databases, Google Scholar has great size, breadth and cross-disciplinary depth.
Types of scholarly material Google Scholar points to include
Peer-reviewed articles
Theses
Books
Abstracts and papers from professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
Searching preferences may be set to a library’s holdings so that relevant hits will be linked to results.
Consult Advanced Scholar Search Tips to increase search accuracy.
11/10/2018

9. Google Book Search http://books.google.com/
An initiative to digitize books from a growing number of major libraries (presently 25 in the US, UK, Spain and Germany).
Potential number of books to be digitized is vast.
Almost all of the U. of Michigan’s over 7,000,000 volumes will be copied.
Only digitized books in public domain will be accessible full-text online.
Still, hundreds of thousands of books are already freely available full-text.
This potent research tool should be known and utilized by all researchers.
11/10/2018

10. © 1996 Ed Stein
11/10/2018

11. Google: Not the Only Search Engine
Scores and scores of others, including:
Ask.com
Scirus
Yippy
Bing
Exalead
and of course Yahoo!
11/10/2018

12. Important to Remember that
Different search engines search different parts of the web
They do it in different ways
There are also widely divergent methods of ranking results.
11/10/2018

13. Capabilities of Different Search Engines
Some are good at
finding still and moving images (e.g. Yahoo!Video for video)
visual searches (e.g. Search-Cube)
finding blogs (e.g. Technorati for blogs)
retrieving podcasts (e.g. Podcast Search Engines)
retrieving sounds (e.g. Findsounds) and so on.
11/10/2018

14. Healia.com -- searches medical info. Regator.com -- searches blogs
More Search Engines
Healia.com -- searches medical info.
Regator.com -- searches blogs
Picsearch --Finds pictures/images
Answers.com – Question and answer
11/10/2018

15. Useful Overviews Of Search Engines
Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need
The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007
Which Search Engine When?
Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher
Search Engine Resources
Wikipedia List of Search Engines
11/10/2018

16. Selective Web Guides
Categorized/annotated guides to web sites generally selected by educators.
Sites carefully evaluated for accuracy and high quality content.
Examples:
INFOMINE
Intute
BUBL LINK
Scirus
IPL
11/10/2018

17. Conclusion
Scholarly research generally requires strong familiarity with
print and electronic resources purchased by Library
vast amount of quality information and data available for free on the internet.
To limit oneself to one type of resource is not good research practice.
11/10/2018