Online Research - Section 5 - Internet Searching

Internet Searching - Subject Directories

Overview

The Internet contains vast oceans of information. Billions and billions of documents await the simple click of a mouse to reveal media in all sizes, shapes, reliability, and relevance. Some Web pages are very personal, intended for the creator's immediate family and friends. Others are full of information on a particular subject, good for research purposes. Still others are just plain junk. In this module, you will learn how to navigate this maze in order to quickly get the information you want.

Internet Strengths

The Internet is great for quickly checking current information, such as:

Consumer products
Government reports
Company information and reports
Financial reports and the stock market
Weather and road conditions
Travel and reservations
Computer and technical information

The Internet is also great for finding:

Maps
People
Popular topics

Many organizations, academic institutions and libraries have websites. The Internet is also a great way to buy or sell just about anything.

Internet Weakness

The Internet suffers from its size. Automated content finders, such as spiders and search bots, working for search engines, are overwhelmed with the enormity of their task. The best search engines are currently estimated to cover a mere 17% of the entire Web. So many pages fall through the cracks in Cyberspace, they become difficult to find or are simply lost.

It may come as a surprise, but not all information is available on the Internet. Although the trend is changing, vast quantities of information are still available only in print. For example, a lot of historical information is still only in print form. If you are looking for reliable analytical or summary information, books may be the best choice. You will often need to use print materials to supplement your online research.

Finally, the Internet allows anyone to be published, from the wisest sage to the most extreme fanatic. Most Internet pages are not reviewed or edited, while most print materials are. For this reason, it's a good idea to compare your online findings with printed sources. Regardless of where you get your information, evaluate it with a critical eye.

Despite the chaos, there are some standard ways to find information on the Internet. Subject directories and search engines are the two we will explore

Subject Directories on the Internet

Subject directories are organized collections of websites. Humans and/or software programs search and collect sites according to established content criteria. Most spiders and bots search only certain fields on a Web page, such as titles and keyword fields. Others may search the page contents as well, but these are rare. When searching a subject directory, you are not searching the entire Internet, but only the websites already gathered and categorized.

Generally, four types of groups are responsible for subject directories:

Professional associations
Academics
Commercial entities
Individuals

Subject directories update their collections regularly. The size of the directories varies. Often, it's a good strategy to use a subject directory to begin your search. Once you find a relevant category thread, it's easy to gather related information. However, because directories only contain selected sites, you may want to use more than one approach.

Professional Association Directories

Let's search "male breast cancer" in a subject directory. We will use lii.org, an annotated subject directory of more than 8,500 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to the public. To follow along, open a second browser window to the site by clicking on lii.org.

You should see a screen similar to the one below:

home page for Librarians' Index to the Internet

There are basically two ways to find information in subject directories:

Browsing the subject categories
Keyword searching

Browse Subject Categories. Let's look at the subject categories first by scrolling down the opening page and clicking on the Medicine - Diseases link. The following list comes up:

This Cancer link will bring up another more detailed listing.

Following the Breast Cancer thread leads us to a list of specific resources:

In this directory, we have selected Cancer - Breast Cancer that generated a list of resources to choose from. Remember, these sites have been pre-selected so if you start in the wrong category, you may miss some sites that you want. It's wise to check more than one category.

Keyword Searching. Okay, let's take the shortcut and do a keyword search on male breast cancer. First we'll go back to our opening screen and enter our search terms:

This time we get a different result, as seen below:

As you may have noticed, a special Advanced Search feature is available on lii.org. Most subject directories have this feature.

Academic Subject directories

Academic subject directories are well organized and focus on research sites. The supporting institution often has librarians or subject experts create and maintain them. As with the previous example, the collected sites are selected according to criteria. Academic subject directories often have longer and more detailed annotations. Keyword and category searching is available. Check out the help pages to learn more.

Commercial Subject Directories

Commercial directories generally appeal to a wide audience. Advertisers, who can influence the search result rankings, usually support them. For example, some participating sites will pay to appear at the top. Unlike our two previous directory types, the selection criteria are usually not available to the public, nor are the evaluators' qualifications. Evaluations can be based solely on the information supplied by the site creator. Yahoo, seen below, is one of the more popular and successful of the commercial directories.

Some of Yahoo's more useful features have been pointed out above. First click on the Yellow pages link and this screen should open up (if not, then press the "Change Location" link):

Once you have entered a location of interest, click on the button.

You should get a listing for your location much like the one below:

Yahoo yellow page listing for a city or location

Now go back to Yahoo's home page and click on the Maps link and this dialog box should open up:

After filling in location information, a map appears, much like the one below:

Go back to Yahoo's home page and click on the People Search link and this dialog box should appear:

Let's see if we can find Bill Clinton's email address by entering his first and last names.

After pressing the "Search" button, the following list comes up:

Although Yahoo lists 81 entries for "Bill Clinton," it looks like the first listing could be the one we're looking for. This feature can be great for finding old friends and former classmates.

Commercial Directory Caveat

Search results are sometimes ranked in order of websites paying for the top positions. In fact, keywords can be sold to the highest bidder.

Directories Created by Individuals

Individuals can also create subject directories. Gary Price, a librarian at George Washington University, created the one shown below: (http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm):

Other individuals have an intensely personal interest in a particular subject area. For example, Bob Stafford, who suffered and eventually died from male breast cancer, created the specialized subject directory (http://interact.withus.com/interact/mbc/):