1) http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/search/indextxt.html
2) http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/search/index.html
Searching the Internet
----------------------
* Searchable Indexes
* Subject Catalogs
* Annotated Directories
* Subject Guides
* Specialized Directories
* End User's Corner
* Net Scout Sidekicks
Many of the services included in the "Searching the Internet" section of the
Scout Toolkit utilize various search engines, each with distinct features
and capabilities. In most cases instructions for using the search engine are
included somewhere at the site, and we have included the location of the
instructions when available. However, the instruction for each search engine
may contain unfamiliar terms that relate to specific functions. For your
convenience we have defined six common functions below. Note that not all
search engines provide all the functions defined. For a summary of the
functions availalble for each search engine, see the Net Scout Sidekicks.
Boolean Searching: Allows terms to be put into logical groups by the use of
connective terms. For example, cats AND dogs narrows a search. Cats OR dogs
broadens a search. Cats NOT dogs narrows a search. Each service explains its
connective terms for Boolean searching in its help or FAQ file. Note that
some systems are defaulted to a certain connective term without the use of
that term. In other words, in some cases cats dogs is treated as cats OR dogs.
Field Searching: Web pages are made up of many parts, including title, URL,
text of the page, links from the page, images on the page, etc. Some search
engines allow these fields to be searched. Combining these field searches in
one search can help the user to greatly increase the relevance of the
retrieved items, as well as allow for searching for specific information
such as how many other pages link to a certain page.
Key word in context (KWIC): These searches will return the key word and N
words near the key word to give the user the context in which the key word
was found.
Phrase Searching: Allows searching of phrases when available. Note that some
systems can be confusing if you think that "Scout Report" is searching the
two words together as a phrase, when in fact the engine is searching Scout
OR Report.
Proximity Searching: Allows searching of one term within N words of another
term, narrowing the search.
Relevance Feedback:Attempts to measure how closely the retrieval matches the
query, usually in quantitative terms between 0 and 100 or 0 and 1,000.
Truncation Searching: Allows searching on different word endings or plurals
with the use of a truncation wild card symbol. For example, if the
truncation symbol is *, then the search term econ* will return items that
contain economics, economy, economic, and econometric. Car* will return
items that contain cars and cartoon, so it is advisable to use truncation
symbols judiciously. See individual help files for the specific truncation
symbol used with each engine, when available.
The search pages of the Toolkit are produced and maintained by Jack Solock
and Susan Calcari.
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David Sangurima, Program Officer for Electronic Communications
LASPAU: Academic and Professional Programs for the Americas
Harvard University
25 Mount Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138-6095 USA
Tel 617-495-0530
Fax 617-495-8990
Email sangu@harvard.edu
http://www.laspau.harvard.edu/