An online subject directory is a database of websites that have been collected and organised by people. Imagine a bookshop where the books are shelved according to their subject. Each subject - like sport - is broken down and organised into smaller more specific subjects - like cricket or swimming. A subject directory does the same thing with websites, and this makes them very useful for browsing. The great strength of subject directories is that people, not computers, choose and evaluate the websites in the directory. The main disadvantage of a Directory is their relatively small size. You may have several thousand websites to search through, rather than the tens of millions that a search engine can offer.
Infomine (http://infomine.ucr.edu) is such a directory. Don your hard-hats for an underground tour of this gem of a website.
Infomine is a collection of web resources mostly collected and organised by librarians, the original information experts. Although Infomine is aimed at an academic audience, it contains resources of use and interest to most people. Secondary students will find it great for homework help! Web resources listed in Infomine have a short description or review about the content of online resources. This alone saves valuable minutes while searching, as you don’t have to check every resource to see if it’s useful or not.
One the greatest strengths of Infomine, after its contents, is the many ways you can search through those contents. Try browsing through the list of broad topics, such as Biological, Agricultural and Medical Sciences, Business and Economics, Government Info, Visual and Performing Arts and more. You can also enter your search words into a search box, and then manipulate and refine the results using the “Modify Search” button.
Visit the “Advanced Search” page for more search options, including the ability to browse by Author and Title. This is particularly useful considering Infomine has a good collection of electronic journals, textbooks and conference proceedings.
Finally, make sure you check out the “Search Tips” page, available from the homepage. It’s very clear and easy to use. Simple but effective tips include using a truncation at the end of a search word. For example, entering “industr*” with a star at the end, the will retrieve results with the words industry, industries, industrial and industrialisation.
Need help searching the web? Contact your local Citi library branch:
Citi Library Aitkenvale 4727 8312
Citi Library Flinders Mall 4727 9665
Citi Library Thuringowa 4773 8601 or infodesk@townsville.qld.gov.au
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Old Skool Google
Sometimes it's scary to look through a photo album and realise that you really did wear some of those weird fashions and hairstyles not-so-long-ago!
It can be just as interesting looking back through a "photo album" of old web pages.
Recently Google celebrated its tenth birthday by revealing the 2001 version of the Google search engine (www.google.com/search2001.html) –be quick to check it out as the site won’t be up for long. Technical issues prevented them from making the 1998 version available, but it’s still amazing to see how far the web has come in the last seven years. Click on a link in the results page and you’ll be taken to the current live version of that page, if it still exists. Look closely at the results and you’ll see a link to “View old version on the Internet Archive”.
The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) is a great way of looking at various web page fashions over the relatively brief history of the internet. From the Internet Archive homepage, type an internet address into the Wayback Machine search box and click the "Take me Back" button to search. If that web site has been archived, you will be presented with a list of dates when the site was "captured" for archiving. Click on a date to see that webpage as it looked in the late 1990's. Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) from 1996 certainly looks different to today's version. The archive isn't complete, and there are plenty of broken links and missing graphics, but it's a fun site to visit.
The Internet Archive also has a serious role preserving the wealth of social, intellectual and cultural information that appears and disappears all too quickly on the Internet. This function makes it a great search tool for web-based information that is several years old. For example, an ABC News page (www.abc.net.au) archived in August 1997, has breaking news stories of the Thredbo landslide disaster.
As well as regular web pages, the Wayback Machine has also archived audio and video files and it has a pretty good Advanced Search feature which is worth a look. Have fun searching the early days of the web.
Need help searching the web? Contact your local Citi library branch:
Citi Library Aitkenvale 4727 8312
Citi Library Flinders Mall 4727 9665
Citi Library Thuringowa 4773 8601 or infodesk@townsville.qld.gov.au
It can be just as interesting looking back through a "photo album" of old web pages.
Recently Google celebrated its tenth birthday by revealing the 2001 version of the Google search engine (www.google.com/search2001.html) –be quick to check it out as the site won’t be up for long. Technical issues prevented them from making the 1998 version available, but it’s still amazing to see how far the web has come in the last seven years. Click on a link in the results page and you’ll be taken to the current live version of that page, if it still exists. Look closely at the results and you’ll see a link to “View old version on the Internet Archive”.
The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) is a great way of looking at various web page fashions over the relatively brief history of the internet. From the Internet Archive homepage, type an internet address into the Wayback Machine search box and click the "Take me Back" button to search. If that web site has been archived, you will be presented with a list of dates when the site was "captured" for archiving. Click on a date to see that webpage as it looked in the late 1990's. Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) from 1996 certainly looks different to today's version. The archive isn't complete, and there are plenty of broken links and missing graphics, but it's a fun site to visit.
The Internet Archive also has a serious role preserving the wealth of social, intellectual and cultural information that appears and disappears all too quickly on the Internet. This function makes it a great search tool for web-based information that is several years old. For example, an ABC News page (www.abc.net.au) archived in August 1997, has breaking news stories of the Thredbo landslide disaster.
As well as regular web pages, the Wayback Machine has also archived audio and video files and it has a pretty good Advanced Search feature which is worth a look. Have fun searching the early days of the web.
Need help searching the web? Contact your local Citi library branch:
Citi Library Aitkenvale 4727 8312
Citi Library Flinders Mall 4727 9665
Citi Library Thuringowa 4773 8601 or infodesk@townsville.qld.gov.au
Friday, October 17, 2008
What will I read now?
It’s always satisfying to get to the end of a series of books by your favourite author. The comfort of a familiar writing style, subject matter and engaging characters all combine to make reading a pleasurable experience, but the downside is always ‘what am I going to read now?’
Citi Libraries’ online databases include a resource called “What do I read next?” The database is accessed through the library’s online catalogue (http://catalogue.townsville.qld.gov.au/spydus.html) by clicking on the link for ‘online databases’.
Do a search by author name to find a list of books by an author you like. Click on one from the list and plot details, character lists, subjects, reader age range and even the time period of the book appear. Searching is also possible by genre and story type.
Perhaps you really enjoyed a particular book and would like to find something similar, but by a different author. You can do a search for similar books by clicking on the ‘Help Me Find a Book’ link. Simply enter the name of the book you enjoyed and then click on the link that comes up.
Try entering the book title ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. You can then choose from a range of options on subjects within the book that you are interested in, as well as settings, time periods and major characters. Take care to spell the title correctly though, as it will return a ‘sorry - no matches’ message if there are any mistakes.
Additionally, you can select whether you want to find books for adults, young adults, children or fiction or non-fiction to narrow down the results.
Another useful feature is the ability to search for award-winning books. The prize-winning lists are extensive, with everything from the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards to Pulitzer Prize winners. Type in Miles Franklin Awards and every book awarded this prize since it was first presented in 1957 comes up. Have a browse and see what takes your interest!
Need help searching the web? Contact your local Citi library branch:
Citi Library Aitkenvale 4727 8312
Citi Library Flinders Mall 4727 9665
Citi Library Thuringowa 4773 8601 or infodesk@townsville.qld.gov.au
Citi Libraries’ online databases include a resource called “What do I read next?” The database is accessed through the library’s online catalogue (http://catalogue.townsville.qld.gov.au/spydus.html) by clicking on the link for ‘online databases’.
Do a search by author name to find a list of books by an author you like. Click on one from the list and plot details, character lists, subjects, reader age range and even the time period of the book appear. Searching is also possible by genre and story type.
Perhaps you really enjoyed a particular book and would like to find something similar, but by a different author. You can do a search for similar books by clicking on the ‘Help Me Find a Book’ link. Simply enter the name of the book you enjoyed and then click on the link that comes up.
Try entering the book title ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. You can then choose from a range of options on subjects within the book that you are interested in, as well as settings, time periods and major characters. Take care to spell the title correctly though, as it will return a ‘sorry - no matches’ message if there are any mistakes.
Additionally, you can select whether you want to find books for adults, young adults, children or fiction or non-fiction to narrow down the results.
Another useful feature is the ability to search for award-winning books. The prize-winning lists are extensive, with everything from the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards to Pulitzer Prize winners. Type in Miles Franklin Awards and every book awarded this prize since it was first presented in 1957 comes up. Have a browse and see what takes your interest!
Need help searching the web? Contact your local Citi library branch:
Citi Library Aitkenvale 4727 8312
Citi Library Flinders Mall 4727 9665
Citi Library Thuringowa 4773 8601 or infodesk@townsville.qld.gov.au
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