Photo: Footpath at Anglia Ruskin University http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/411093 © Copyright William Metcalfe and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence 2.0 This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence

Exploiting the Web for ResearchUniversity Library Researchers Day Friday 16th April 2010, Chelmsford

Presented by Karen Blakeman

Title slide photo found on Geograph

• Geograph

– http://www.greograph.org.uk/

• Supported by the Ordnance Survey

• Aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland

• Anyone can provide photos but must assign a Creative Commons 2 licence

• Details and information associated with photos extracted from camera EXIF data and provided by the photographer

• Karen Blakeman's Blog Geograph British Isles – photograph every grid square

– http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2009/01/07/geograph-british-isles-photograph-every-grid-square/

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Creative Commons

• A whole range of licenses that specify what you can and cannot do with an article, photo, presentation etc.

• See http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/ for details of the licenses

• If you publish or share anything on the web assign the appropriate license (or state that all rights are reserved)

• Select your license at http://creativecommons.org/choose/

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Who is linking to your “stuff”

• Link command - find pages that link to a specific site, document or blog (neither are comprehensive)– Yahoo

• link:

• use –site: to exclude web site’s internal links

• e.g. link:http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/ -site:ergobalance.blogspot.com

– Google

• link:

• or use advanced search screen

• Tweets referring to your “stuff”– Backtweets.com

• enter the URL of your web site, blog

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Changing landscape of search

• Google isn’t the only option

• Social media and networks are now an essential part of the search

mix

• Publican hiring bar staff uses Facebook to pre-screen candidates

• Student used YouTube to find information on the life cycle of the Duck

Billed Platypus for an essay

• Business students assignment on advertising history of Cadbury’s

Crème Egg and Dairy Milk – Youtube!

• Twitter and blogs used as an essential part of reputation monitoring

• What’s happening at conferences - Twitter, Slideshare, Flickr, videos,

podcasts

• Search engines now including social media and professional

networks in search results

Google

• Google doesn’t find everything

• Even Google’s “specialist” services (e.g. Scholar, News, Data Explorer) are not comprehensive

• Your best result could be 1,000,234th in the results list • Google’s results are becoming messier

– some sites are given extra weighting in your results and given precedence over more relevant pages

– incorporate results from Google’s news, blogs, finance, images, books, videos etc depending on your query

– social media e.g. Twitter now included

– use advanced search features

– need to focus your search e.g. with ‘Show options’

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General search techniques

• Imagine what you would like to appear in your ideal document and include those terms in your strategy

• Ask a question or partially answer your question in your strategy– “How fast can a hippopotamus run?”

– “A hippopotamus can run at” • Repeat your key search terms in your search strategy

– chocolate production france belgium austria– chocolate production france belgium austria belgium belgium

• can enter up to 32 terms in Google

• Change the order of your terms– chocolate production france belgium austria– production france belgium austria production

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Some useful tricks

• Search sites or domains using the site: command

– e.g. site:statistics.gov.uk, site:gov.uk

– “car ownership” UK site:statistics.gov.uk

• Focus your search on areas of the document

– inurl: for example inurl:”climate change”

• looks for your term/phrase in the URL

– intitle: for example intitle:”climate change”

• looks for your term/phrase in the title of the page

• Use Advanced Search screens or command line

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File format search

• Use advanced search options to limit your search to file types or format:– pdf or doc for government or industry/market reports

– xls for data and statistics

– ppt or pdf for presentations, experts on a topic

• Use Google and Yahoo Advanced Search

• Bing.com sometimes picks up unique content – use command filetype: in your search strategy e.g.

filetype:ppt car ownership UK

• Presentations– Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/

– authorstream http://www.authorstream.com/

– Slidefinder http://www.slidefinder.net/

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Slidefinder

• http://www.slidefinder.net/

• Identifies individual slides within a presentation

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Docjax

• http://www.docjax.com/

• searches pdf, xls, doc, ppt in Yahoo and Google

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Unique Google search features

• Automatically looks for variations on your terms– to stop it, precede your terms with plus signs

e.g. air +pollution

• Synonym search – precede your search terms with a tilde (~)– e.g. ~banking

• Numeric range search– can be weights, distances, years, prices – use Advanced Search screen– or the search box on the Google home page– search term(s) first value..second value unit of measurement – toblerone 1..5 kg– TV advertising spend forecasts 2010..2015

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Unique Google search features

• Proximity– use the asterisk (*) to stand in for one or more terms

– macular * degeneration picks up

• macular retinal degeneration

• macula disciform degeneration

• macular choroidal degeneration

• macular vitelliform degeneration

• macular pigmentary degeneration

– separates the terms by one or more words

• no information on maximum number of terms of separation

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Google Show Options

Google Show Options

• Timeline and Wonderwheel

Google Show Options

• Related search terms

Yahoo!

• http://www.yahoo.co.uk/ • http://search.yahoo.co.uk/ http://search.yahoo.com/ • Some country versions already using Bing web search, rest

will follow during the year• Now includes additional options for limiting search in left hand

menu bar

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Bing

• http://www.bing.com/ (was live.com) - “decision engine”

• Results tend to be more consumer oriented

• Seems to have the most up to date database and

possibly the most extensive database of web pages

• Results vary considerably depending on the country

version

• Supposedly incorporating real time, social media results

into main search

• Separate Twitter search at http://www.bing.com/twitter

– not very good! Stick to Twitter Search or Google Show

options, Updates

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Should you even be starting with Google?

Some examples of where you ought to consider looking!

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Intute

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• http://www.intute.ac.uk/

• Excellent starting point for quality web sites on all subjects BUT...

• ... no funding from August 2010

iSEEK

• http://www.iseek.com/

• Clusters results into topics, people, places, organisations, date & time

• Search on a person gives priority to social media profiles

• “Education” option – more research oriented pages

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Business - http://www.alacrawiki.com - spotlights

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http://www.alacra.com/alacrasearch/

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LGSearch – http://lgsearch.net/

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http://www.directionlessgov.com/

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Ten science search engines – update

• Google Scholar is most definitely not enough!

• spineless? http://hwlibrary.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/ten-science-search-engines-update/#comment-7943 – Scirus – http://www.scirus.com/

– Scitopia.org – http://www.scitopia.org/

– Science.gov – http://www.science.gov/

– ScienceResearch.com - http://www.scienceresearch.com/

– Scitation - http://scitation.aip.org/

– WorldWideScience.org - http://worldwidescience.org/

– Science Accelerator - http://www.scienceaccelerator.gov/

– TechXtra – http://www.techxtra.ac.uk

– search.optics.org - http://search.optics.org/

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Scirus• http://www.scirus.com/• Scientific, scholarly, technical and medical information• Elsevier journals, also web sites, patents and pre-prints• Good advanced search features.

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TechXtra• http://www.techxtra.ac.uk

• ICBL and the Library at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

• Engineering, mathematics and computing

• Free information and pay per view

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Chemspider

• http://www.chemspider.com/• A chemistry search engine aggregating & indexing chemical

structures and their associated information into a single, free of charge, searchable repository

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Pubmed

• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

• http://ukpmc.ac.uk/

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Google Scholar

• http://scholar.google.com/

• No source list

• Not comprehensive and omits many key scientific publications

• Both peer-reviewed and un-reviewed articles, pre-prints, institutional repositories, references to books, citations

• Does not use publishers’ meta data

• Author search unreliable

• Search on year of publication unreliable

• “Google Scholar is brain damaged”Peter Jasco, Trends in Professional and Academic Online Information Services, presented at Inforum, 22nd May 2007, Prague

Use with caution and be aware that there are huge gaps in coverage

Statistics

• Best starting point for stats: OFFSTATS - The University of Auckland Library– http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/

• Google Public Data Explorer http://www.google.com/publicdata/home – Karen Blakeman's Google Public Data Explorer- fine as far as it goes

http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/03/27/google-public-data-explorer-fine-as-far-as-it-goes/

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Conferences

• Track down latest research, experts on a topic

• Find the conference web page – programme, speakers, presentations, hashtag e.g. #uksg

• Search and monitor Twitter for the hashtag– delegates reporting on presentations

– speakers (and delegates) announcing location of presentations on web sites, blogs, Slideshare etc

• Live video streaming

• Blogs reporting on the conference

• Videos, podcasts of presentations

• Use file format to search for ppt and pdf files of presentations

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Videos, demos, presentations

• Search engines’ video/audio tabs

• YouTube, Vimeo.com, iTunes U, YouTube EDU http://www.youtube.com/education

• Blinkx - http://www.blinkx.com/

• Truveo – http://www.truveo.com/ – country versions available

• Zuula - http://www.zuula.com/ – click on the video tab

• Browsys Finder (formerly Intelways/Crossengine)– http://www.browsys.com/finder/

– click on the video tab

• Podcasts associated with news stories on e.g. BBC, The Guardian, New Scientist, Nature etc.

• Odeo - http://www.odeo.com/

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iTunes U – competitor intelligence?

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iTunes U - lectures

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iTunes U – podcasts

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Blogs

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Blogs

• Lots of good “stuff” in blogs

• Many scientists and researchers use blogs to publish or discuss research

• Google web search “Show options”– Blogs

– By date and time

• Latest, Past 24 hours, Past week include large proportion of forums, news and press releases, blog postings

• Blog search tools– Look for the blogroll or list of links on a known, trusted blog

– Google blogsearch http://blogsearch.google.com/

– Blogpulse http://www.blogpulse.com/

– Icerocket http://www.icerocket.com/ (also Twitter and MySpace)

– Technorati http://www.technorati.com/

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Blogpulse search and trends

Click on the graph to see ‘trends’

Shows how many posts contain your search terms

over time – can compare up to three searches

Twitter

• http://www.twitter.com/

• Instant messaging and SMS on the web but one to many

• Microblogging – postings are called ‘tweets’ and 140 characters long

• Develop and expand your personal and organisation’s networks

• “Follow” people to include their tweets in your twitterstream

• Monitor conferences, what people are saying about companies, products, services

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Twitter search

• Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/

• Twazzup – http://twazzup.com/

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Tracking down people on Twitter

• Twitter.com, Find People• Tweepz – http://tweepz.com/• Lists

– found someone tweeting on your topic?– see who they are following and who is

following them– see which lists they are on and who else

is on the list– Tweetdeck Directory of lists

• http://www.tweetdeck.com/directory/ – Listorious

• http://listorious.com/

• How To Find People To Follow On Twitter– http://searchengineland.com/how-to-find-people-to-follow-on-twitter-

38196

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Email discussion lists

• For example JISCmail lists• Business - BUSLIB-L• My most useful resources for finding information on an unfamiliar

topic or tracking down an expert on a topic

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Conduct your own research• Online survey tools e.g. Survey Monkey, Twtpoll

– advertise links to your survey on your web pages, blogs, Twitter, Facebook page, email lists etc

• Use Facebook pages for campaigns and surveys e.g. http://www.facebook.com/marmitebars

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Further information & keeping up to date

• Information World Review (IWR) and IWR Blog– http://www.iwr.co.uk/, http://blog.iwr.co.uk/

• Phil Bradley’s Blog– http://philbradley.typepad.com/

• I want to– http://philbradley.typepad.com/i_want_to/

• Web 2.0 tools and applications: 1100+ Web2 apps listed, annotated– http://www.philb.com/iwantto.htm

• Karen Blakeman’s Blog– http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/

• Annual Online Information Exhibition, London, usually at the beginning of December– http://www.online-information.co.uk/ – Extensive programme of free seminars, updates and master

classes on the exhibition floor.

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Karen Blakeman karen.blakeman@rba.co.ukWeb site http://www.rba.co.uk/ Blog http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/karenblakeman This presentation can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman