Clearinghouse of Professional Information

Search Tools   

	indicates an item written by SOLS staff
	indicates an item written by OLS-North staff

General Resources

About Web Searching

• Best Search Tools Chart (Infopeople Project) Supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.
• How to Search the Net Effectively (Media Awareness Network)
• Search Engine by Search Features By librarian G.R. Notess - organized comparison charts, reviews, search strategies, etc. (updated in Marcy 2008)
• Search the Internet and find websites (University of California. Berkeley Library). A real find!  Groups search engines in a table, including search text box for each, as well as search tips for many general and advanced search engines.
• Web Searching Tips (Internet Public Library) of the IPL's favorite general Internet search engines and web directories.

Specialized Resources

Topics: Canadian approach | " Deep Web" |  Directories |  French search tools (link to be added) | General Search Engines | "Image" Search Engines | "Invisible Web" | Meta Search  |   Specialized Search Engines |  Vortals | Web Site Evaluation

A Canadian Approach 

• Aboriginal Canada Portal Single window to Canadian Aboriginal on-line resources, contacts, information, and government programs and services. 
• Canadian Information by Subject (NL) / Information sur le Canada par matière (BN)
• Yahoo! Canada Features more than 12,000 sites of relevance to Canadians in addition to offering the full Yahoo! database of listings.

Directories

• Environmental Organizations Web Directory:  world's biggest environment search engine
• Le Fouineux Excellent search engine portal and directory in French
• Google Web Directory   No frills and fast!
• The Internet Public Library (University of Michigan)
• La Toile du Québec
• Librarian's Index to the Internet (searchable!) from the Berkeley Public Library.
• Yahoo  The largest and most popular hierarchical subject directory of Internet resources.

On-line Databases

• Educator's Reference Desk "You can access AskERIC's 2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information, and 200+ question archive responses.  The Educator's Reference Desk provides a search interface to the ERIC Database, providing access to over one million bibliographic records on educational research, theory, and practice.
• FindArticles is a free resource for articles searches.
• IngentaConnect  Need to be a registered user. Free to use. IngentaConnect offers one of the most comprehensive collections of academic and professional research articles online - some 17 million articles from 28,000 publications, including 6,100 online.

Search Engines

• Ask.com  Replaces Ask Jeeves and searches the Teoma database of web pages. (Teoma discontinued March 2006.)  Full text of web pages (over 2 billion).   
• Clusty  Optimized for mobile devices
• Google!  No frills and fast. Shows the most relevant pages first.
• Greener A search engine to use to find all things green.
• KartOO A visual meta search engine

"Deep or Invisible Web" search engines

The “deep” or “invisible” web are web pages not immediately found in search engines. Usually, these resources are located in databases or are otherwise excluded from conventional searches.

• The Deep Web - Find Out More About The Deep Web - Deep Web Search (Ask.com)

"Image" Search Engines

• Picsearch Picsearch connects its users to the vast visual resources of the internet. Picsearch uses its own technology to crawl the web and has created a searchable index of images. Picsearch has a family friendliness that allows children to surf in safety as all offensive material is filtered out by our advanced filtering systems
• Google Image Search
• Directory of Image Search Engines  (Big Search Engine Index)

Meta  search engines

Metasearches send a single query to multiple databases simultaneously.

• Dogpile: Metasearch searches multiple engines - this means that instead of getting the best results one search engine has to offer, you'll be getting the best combined results from a variety of engines, and not just any engines, but industry leading engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, Live Search, Ask.com, About, MIVA, LookSmart and more.
• Ixquick:  Searches the 14 largest engines. Ranks results. Use this engine when you are searching for an obscure topic or an individual site. "Librarians love it!"
• Mamma: Mother of All Search Engines Interface also in French to search the 'francophonie' or the world

Specialized Search Engines

• Berit's Best Sites for Children 
• Health and Medical Search Engines  Link to sites selected by SOLS on this topic.
• KidsClick Web search for kids by librarians. Includes a directory version withDewey classes
• MagPortal    Helps you find individual magazine articles on the web. Use the search engine or click on a category to browse through article listings from many free magazines.

Vortals  / Portals

Vortals are web sites which focus on particular topics and which especially allow you to search for information relating to those topics. They include specialty search engines, link lists in Yahoo-style directory search categories.

• CrossDaily.com Links to Christian search engines and resources.  
• Direct Search (by Gary Price of Resource Shelf). A growing compilation of links to the search interfaces of resources that contain data not easily or entirely searchable/accessible from general search tools like Alta Vista, Google, or Hotbot
• Librarian's Index to the Internet (searchable!) from the Berkeley Public Library.
• UNESCO Libraries Portal
• Virtual Reference Library - outside Toronto; - Toronto residents;  - Ottawa residents)

Web Site Evaluation

This section includes some general resources about how to evaluate web sites.

• Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites, From Dalhousie University. They also have a checklist you can use to evaluate sites
• Evaluating Information Found on the Internet, from The Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University
• Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask, from UC Berkeley Library
• Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria for the Classroom, from Lesley University
• Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools, from Cornell University Library
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: or, Why It’s A Good Idea To Evaluate Web Sources, from New Mexico State University Library