What about today’s students, though? While thirty-something students had the Internet when it came time to do a research paper, we did not have all of the virtual assistance students have today. As a reference librarian, it is alarming to see how many students are clueless when it comes to researching a topic. From my experience, many of them think typing a phrase in to Google is their “research.” Although Google is a very helpful search engine, these students do not know that they must look at the authenticity of the source rather than taking it as informational doctrine.

In the study “How Teens Do Research in the Digital World,” Kristen Purcell et al express that although the finest students will access research on a wide range, they are equally concerned about students not evaluating the quality of online information.[1] Which is why Purcell et al go on to state that they spend time teaching this in the classroom.

According to a survey taken by teachers, 94 percent of students are most likely “to perform research by using Google, while only 18 percent use a print or electronic book, 17 percent search an online database, and 16 percent consult a public or school librarian.[2] While in college, JSTOR was my go-to database; I used it for many literature analysis articles. In addition to this, I lived in the library’s stacks in my search for literature analysis on a particular author. Now, though, if you were to look up a psychoanalytical analysis of Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips,” you could access any angst-ridden teenaged girl’s take on it.

It is so important to teach students how to use search engines correctly. I believe this starts with informing students that “Googling” is inequitable to “research.” A librarian at University Laboratory High encourages students to use Google Scholar and subscribed databases.[3] Google Scholar is a great tool as it includes scholarly articles, which is just the type of information students should be utilizing. This is an especially fantastic tool if libraries are lacking the funding to purchase subscriptions to online databases.

The “Strategies” page on Carnegie Mellon’s interesting Solve a Teaching Problem website by the Eberly Center has a lot of great pointers. A problem is identified, such as “students do not know how to research,” and suggestions are given to alleviate the issue. The university goes on to further explore how to solve the problems by prescreening the students’ research skills, teaching research abilities, collaborating with the library, etc.[4]

What would assuage all of these research problems by the time a student gets to the university level would be to start making online research methods part of the middle school students’ curriculum. Some schools are lucky enough to have a media specialist teach this, while others do not. Many schools have eliminated professional librarians who used to teach research skills, and because of this, teachers must pick up the ball. I realize that teachers are already have their lesson plans stretched to maximum levels, but it is in the students’ best academic interest to teach them effective research skills from an early age.

References:

[1]  Kristen Purcell et al, “How Teens Do Research In The Digital World,” report by Pew Research Center, November 1, 2012.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Leslie Harris O’Hanlon, “Teaching Students Better Online Skills,” Education Week, May 20, 2013, reprinted in Education Week: Digital Curricula Evolving as “Teaching Students The Skills to Be Savvy Researchers,” May 22, 2013.

[4] Eberly Center, “Explore Strategies: Students don’t know how to do research,” Solve a Teaching Problem, n.d.

Further Reading:

Paul Jackson, “Search vs. Research“

The post Teach Effective Research Skills Early first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

I’m sometimes caught with my jaw open. In working with many librarians on various discussion lists, I find they seem to be looking for things and answers only on those databases and aggregators of databases to which they have corporate access, such as ProQuest, EBSCOhost, Gale databases, et al. Of course, this is done because these databases are considered safe and more reliable information than items found on the Internet. But my jaw drops when I find they haven’t made an effort to search the Internet, or they haven’t found what they need from the Internet when indeed it can be found. In any case, the Internet can be and is, for a librarian, a friend.

Lots of information can be found using various search engines and search operands with the Internet. To be honest, it seems the Internet is now about finding more friends or connections than you can deal with, finding more restaurants for which you have no time to eat at, or in the case of a chosen career, finding more jobs for which you won’t ever qualify, and more than you even want to be qualified for. To me, it seems that more people are making money online telling me how to write, how to market, how to publish, and how to annoy as many people as possible to sell my stories, than those actually writing stories and nonfiction.

This piece is about finding resources to help you use the Internet more effectively and efficiently.

Search Engines

There are lots of directories of search engines—engines for countries, for collectors, for researchers, for almost any endeavor you might be engaged in.

Phil Bradley has a short annotated list. The site also has articles about using the different search engines and gives a listing of social media tools, and the blogs about searching can keep you up-to-date.

Mashable has a listing organized hierarchically for general, human-generated, book and library, business, music- and video-related, blog and RSS engines, and miscellaneous topical engines. These are somewhat similar to the Wikipedia layout below.

Wikipedia has an interesting and useful breakdown of search engines and what they do: sorting out those of general content, specific topics, a grouping based on model (hierarchical, index, clustering, meta, semantic, visual, etc.,) and a section telling us which search engine indexes these various engines are using, if not their own.

SearchEngineWatch.com is one of the premier sites to find information about search engines, marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), and many articles about the difference in engines. It was one of the first of such sites and used to have a very easy-to-find chart of all the operands used for the various search engines. Initially SEW was on the top of my list, but it has gone far into the business of marketing and helping webmasters to create pages so search engines can find them, rather than about searching and research.

Using Boolean and Scripts

Operand charts include Google. Many university libraries, like University of New Orleans and Berkeley, already have Boolean charts available outlining operands for several library databases.

Some software programs can generate scripts for searching. A book some might wish to read is Alison and Adrian Stacey’s Effective Information Retrieval from the Internet: An Advanced User’s Guide. I’ve also mentioned Tara Calishan’s book Web Search Garage in another article.

A 2004 presentation by Marcus P. Zillman, “Searching the Internet Using Brains and Bots,” provide for some great—if a bit dated—resources for searching and/or teaching library literacy.

In the music business, finding a piece of sheet music can be difficult, unless you know that various publishers have contractual agreements with publishing groups in other countries. A European publisher will have agents for their works in the U.S. but not necessarily under the original publisher’s name. TRO, Inc. in New York City has or had at one point, contracts with music publishing groups in seventeen countries. You could often go to TRO to find something published in Europe and other countries but unavailable from the original publisher. You can discover who these agents are, usually, by surveying the original publisher’s entire website.

Not everyone can know details about all businesses, but persistent and creative searching can often reveal such things. At this point in time, as essential as bibliographic instruction is, knowledge of searching is at least as important to the librarian, and it really helps to know the inside workings of various fields of business.

The post Search vs. Research first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

If we are asking a question, the way we ask can disrupt the course of inquiry…if we ask the wrong question.

Many other more recent books and search engines have been engaged in struggling with the semantics of questions and queries. The new one by Leslie Stebbins, Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth, suggests there are many issues related to ‘Search Psychology” when evaluating the reliability of answers.

Whether we are searching online or doing research for a solution, the results are based on the questions we ask and how we ask them. I found recently that when a music library was asking to find opera glass reviews, using those two separate and common words, that search results were about glasses and operas, but little about those little binoculars called opera glasses. Hyphenating the same terms, “opera-glasses,” brought reviews to the top of search results.

We have a number of issues when searching online looking for the right combination of terms and operands such as InURL:PDF and using space between words, such as the undocumented Google proximity operand, AROUND(5). Many of the tips we find for searching exist as a result of others’ trial and error or from reading books of those who have studied search extensively like Web Search Garage, Yahoo to the Max, The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines, The Skeptical Business Searcher and the newer one mentioned above. Someone, maybe several, have put all the operands on the net.

Organizations have been looking for solutions to good management for decades. Such processes as used by efficiency experts, management by objectives, total quality management, quality circles, Deming methods, re-engineering, strategic planning, and most notably recent, re-branding everything. Since we keep seeing new ideas along with a plethora of books on creative thinking and innovation, perhaps we are not asking the right questions. A few years ago, Special Librarians were asking what they must do to stop their company from closing the corporate libraries, as if they could do something different to make those events stop. As I explained in a long letter to the editor of Information Outlook, “It’s not about us,” it wasn’t our fault.² Mergers require someone to pay the debt created and often some of it is born by those corporate libraries which are closed.

The real question might have been, “How do we stay connected to top management or board of directors who make such decisions?” I’m aware of one library that died and took with it all the microfiche that told the engineers what type of metals were used for connections to underwater cables—a necessary thing—lost information requiring new onsite checks.

In 60 AD, Petronius Arbiter, a Roman Imperial Army officer, was attributed as saying, “I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organizing and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”³

More recently since the 1990s, due to a translation and publication of a Russian book, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving by Genrich Altshuller, U.S. Engineers have become acquainted with TRIZ, a systematic innovation methodology. TRIZ is a process through which engineers can sort out and optimize the best approach to a solution. It’s about finding the right questions as to what is to be solved. Sometimes through the forty principles, finding ‘conflicts’ or ‘contradictions’ lead to new questions leading to different solutions than those anticipated. TRIZ is used at Boeing Company and some others. Some businesses have adapted the program or process. I’m unaware of any libraries using this powerful process, TRIZ, for finding the right questions for organizational development or re-branding.

The recent Gallup poll tells us that only 32 percent of staff of corporations (and maybe large libraries) are really engaged in all of this rebranding, re-engineering, and various innovation programs. Possibly, it is because the emphasis is on changing processes and organizational charts, rather than giving responsibility to line staff for finding solutions at lowest levels. Gaining solutions to library problems and issues should be about finding and asking the right questions. One bad or one good experience with a library with line personnel will color a patron’s confidence in all libraries.

References:

¹ Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art. (New York: New American Library, 1953), 1.

² Editor, message from author, June 1, 2004.

³ Petronius Arbiter, quoted in Quote Investigator.

Resources:

Every Google Search Operator You’ll Ever Need

The post Finding Answers III: Searching For the Right Questions first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

What Makes a Site “Mobile-Friendly”

So what exactly qualifies as “mobile-friendly?” If you’ve ever tried to navigate a site on your smartphone that isn’t optimized for mobile, you may have experienced the frustration of not being able to read text because it’s too small or accidentally clicking on the wrong link. These are two of the elements Google checks: text size and link distance.

The other element Google checks is your site’s mobile viewport configuration. A viewport determines how a webpage is displayed on a mobile device. Without a viewport, mobile devices will display your page at desktop width, scaled to fit the screen, making it a pain to navigate. A responsive, mobile-friendly website has different layouts for different screen sizes: from large tablets to smartphones with 4-inch displays.

How to Check the Mobile-Friendliness of Your Site

If you’re not sure where your website stands in mobile-friendliness, Google helpfully provides you with a few free tools:

• You can also test individual pages using Google’s Mobile-Friendly test, which analyzes your page’s URL and reports if it has a mobile-friendly design.
• Google’s Mobile Usability feature, part of the Webmaster toolset, can help you identify mobile usability issues with your site.
• Fetch as Google lets you see your web pages the way Google’s smartphone crawler would.
• Chrome’s Device Mode and Mobile Emulation tool lets you check your mobile website’s responsiveness across various screen sizes, and assess its performance across varying connection speeds.
• If you need further assistance or explanation, you can always ask questions (and find answers!) at Google’s Webmaster Central Help Forum.

How Your Content Management System Can Help

Many content management systems (CMSes), including library-specific CMSes, offer some sort of toolset or themes to help you take your site mobile. WordPress, for example, offers WPtouch, a plug-in that automatically enables a mobile theme for visitors reaching you by way of their phones. Drupal, an open source CMS, offers mobile-friendly themes for your website. Google has a helpful guide for optimizing your Drupal site for mobile. Sites built with LibGuides are responsive out of the box so you don’t have to do any of the work to ensure your site displays correctly on all devices.

Google’s ever-changing search and indexing algorithms can be frustrating to deal with. But this particular change should serve as a nudge to start thinking about a mobile strategy for your library’s website. As nearly two-thirds of American adults own a smartphone (Pew Research Center), it is becoming increasingly important to reach your patrons wirelessly. By beginning the mobile optimization process, you will not only stay ahead of the Google game, but you’ll also better serve your smartphone-carrying patrons.

The post What Google’s Algorithm Change Means for Library Websites first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

The Huffington Post recently published 13 Google Search Tricks That Make Life a Whole Lot Easier by Carina Kolodny. The article shares examples of how you can use Google as more than just a basic search engine to find out what date is Leonardo Dicaprio’s birthday (…just me?). Let’s take converting currency, for example. As we all know, there are many websites out there to help you do this. But did you know that you could get a currency conversion right in the Google search box? I certainly didn’t.

A few of the “tricks” in the article are obvious to anyone who has Googled regularly, much less someone who has a Masters in Library and Information Science. An example of that is “put your search phrase inside quotation marks” when you want to search for an exact phrase or sentence. But many pointers were pretty cool and definitely new to me. My personal favorites were how to search within a website (all you have to do is type “site:” the web address, and the search terms), how to find a GIF (hint: you’ll need to use the advanced search tool in Google Images and click “animated”), and how to search for a news article in a range of dates, which is definitely something that public librarians will find helpful (just add two periods between the date ranges).

Check out the article for detailed instructions on these and other tips. Which was your favorite? How do you use Google on the job? Share your comments below!

The post Tips for More Effective Google Searches first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Let’s get started by going to WolframAlpha.  First, notice all the images scattered about.  Click on one of them and it will show you results about the topic.  For example, the image for the Eiffel Tower brings you to a page that has calculated the height of the monument.  The data given is in feet, but the answer is also converted into different unit measurements.

One of my favorite queries to do with WolframAlpha is to search for first names.  For this example, try searching your name by following these steps:
1. Go to WolframAlpha.com
2.  Type in your name (e.g. Joanna)
3.  Click the equal sign
4.  Review your results

Using the example of a name search, the first box on the page tells what assumptions are being made to complete the calculation. We are also presented with assumptions that they are making, “Assuming “joanna” is a given name | Use as a city or a species specification instead” above the result (WolframAlpha, 2013).  The results for this calculation are: U.S. births, history of U.S. births (with a chart), population estimates, age distribution, alternate versions of the name, and famous people with the name.  Information on the page also includes definition of terms, related questions, and source citation.  That’s a lot of content to get from a simple search.  Now, you may be wondering, where do they get the information? Each page provides a citation from reliable sources.

WolframAlpha offers a plethora of information on: mathematics, weather, geography, people, history, music, physics, astronomy, food and nutrition, and health.  It’s amazing what can be done with calculus here!

Free personal accounts can also be created.  With this account one can create a favorites list of queries, access search history, set preferences and get personal Facebook analytics.  Paid accounts are available with WolframAlpha Pro and there are a lot more features including: image and spreadsheet input, interactivity with results, and downloadable results.  They even have mobile and PC apps, widgets and tool bars.

Next time you want calculated information, check out WolframAlpha.com!

Bibliography

“What is WolframAlpha?” WolframAlpha.com. Accessed February 4, 2013. http://www.wolframalpha.com/tour/what-is-wolframalpha.html.

“Joanna.” WolframAlpha.com. Accessed February 4, 2013. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=joanna.

The post A Wolf or a Ram? What is Wolfram Alpha? first appeared on Public Libraries Online.