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Information
Literacy: Search Strategies
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Choose
the Best Search for Your Information Need
Edited to meet the needs of Australian students by Jan Radford, Delany College, NSW, with permission.
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Need additional search ideas? Try NoodleQuest
(interactive version)
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I need help to define my topic...
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I need help to define my topic...
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I need help to find Australian information
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Webwombat
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Truly Australian search engine. Links to National/ International
newspapers.
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Yahoo Australia
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Search by topic and drill down from the
general to the specific.
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Google Australia
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The most popular search engine in Australia. Use ‘I feel lucky’ or choose the “.au”
domain in advanced search.
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Sensis
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Telstra’s search engine. Included are White and Yellow pages for
Australia.
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NineMSN
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Developed by Microsoft, it is the 3rd
most popular search engine in Australia.
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Search66
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Australian meta search engine that
searches multiple engines at the same time.
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Lookle
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Australian search engine with a heart –
the more you search, the more they donate.
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Ansearch
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A new Australian search engine.
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Cutural/recreational portal
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An Australian government site; 4,000 sites and 2.5m
pages
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I
need to understand the scope of my topic
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Intute
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Investigate
annotated academic sites
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INFOMINE
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Browse
annotated research and educational sites enhanced by second-tier
“robot-selected” results
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Boolify
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Build your advanced search simply using Boolean
operators
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I
need to investigate alternative or related topics
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Grokker
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Explore
a web of your topic and subtopics (Yahoo results)
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Clusty
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Uncover
buried sites by choosing a related cluster
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Ask.com
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Select
“Expand Your Search”
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Boolify
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Build your advanced search simply using
Boolean operators
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I
need to refine and narrow my topic
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Ask.com
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Select
“Narrow Your Search”
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Clusty
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Drill
down into a cluster of results
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SurfWax
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Click
"Focus" to identify similar, broader, and narrower topics
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Boolify
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Build your advanced search simply using
Boolean operators
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I need to find quality results...
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authoritative
and scholarly sites chosen by a subject expert
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personal
help from experts
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sites
ranked or tagged as valuable or relevant
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Google
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High
PageRank means popular, relevant sites link to
the page
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Technorati
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Browse
or search user-identified subjects (“tags”) for blog advice or opinions
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Ask.com
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High
ExpertRank indicates subject-specific
popularity
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primary sources
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I need to do research in a specific
discipline...
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government
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Science,
engineering, technology
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health
and life sciences
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law
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Web Law - Australia
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Subject gateway to Australian legal
resources
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Australian
law resources
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UniXL
provides students, general public and businesses with high quality and
relevant education and careers related resources.
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FindLaw
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Search
U.S.
cases, codes, news and commentary
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LOUIS
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Search
Congressional documents, Federal Register, GAO reports, bills and
resolutions
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Intute
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Limit
search to “law section” for global legal information
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arts
and humanities
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The timeliness of information that
I need is...
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today
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Google
News
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Top
news stories auto-generated every 15 minutes
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Sydney Morning Herald
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Sydney Newspaper and archive
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The Age
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Melbourne newspaper
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NewsNow
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Worldwide
news auto-generated every 5 minutes
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10x10
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Explore machine-compiled single
image composed hourly of 100 words and pictures that "matter
most" on a global scale
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recent
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historical
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American
memory
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Search America's
primary source documents and images, browse by topic, time period, medium
or place
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Librarians'
Internet Index
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Drill
down into the history
section or search fewer, broader terms (e.g., “terrorists” not “Righteous
Path”)
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Digital
History
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High-quality
historical resources, primary sources, multimedia, subject guides
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ancient
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I need facts...
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a
person
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Biography.com
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Search
25,000+ biographies by name, keyword and profession
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Who2
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Search
for famous people with “four good links” to more information
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Australian
biography
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Dictionary of Australian biography
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a
place
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CIA World Factbook
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Select
country for basic profile and transnational issues
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Country Studies
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Cross-search
or view a country (last update 1998) - historical, social, economic,
political and national security data
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Stately
knowledge
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Basic U.S.
state facts, links to state government site and encyclopedia (IPL KidSpace)
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a
company
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