For my Meta Search Tool I chose to explore
Beaucoup @ www.beaucoup.com , which is
described by Southern Oregon University www.hanlib.sou.edu/searchtools/metatool.html
as:
Beaucoup is a link to
more than categorized 1400 sites. Find sites for Searching, Reference,
Literature, Computers, Internet, Media, Education, and more. Also offers
geographic specific sites to search for worldwide information.
Beaucoup display a list
of fifteen search categories on its landing page, with the last category being “potpourri”.
Each main category title is not a clickable link; however, each search category
displays a short list of subcategories on the main page, which are clickable
links. After choosing your appropriate link, you are taken to landing page full
of links for that category as well as a good description of what type of
information you will find and where it is pulled from (each link appears to
have one specific database it references unlike the Super Search Tool mentioned
below). In addition, conveniently placed on the left of the page is a list
format of all the main categories from the main page; on the right is a list of
“Top Resources”.
They also provide an
easy to use Super Search box, however I could not find any information
regarding Boolean operators or advanced search techniques (though through
exploration they do accept at least some Boolean operators and do not use them
by default). They describe the Super Search Tool as:
Super Search box [takes]
your input [&] will query multiple engines at once including: Yahoo, About,
Infoseek, Lycos, Webcrawler, AllTheWeb.
To get back to the Beaucoup web pages simply click on the graphic at the upper
left hand corner or on any of the Beaucoup categories in the index running
along the left side of the search returns pages.
They do include Paid or
Sponsored Links first in their results when using the Super Search and they do
not list the date that the search results were obtained or updated. After your
initial search, you are provided links of suggestions of key words or topics,
which would appropriately widen or narrow your original search term(s). They do
give a total results display as well as the number of pages found, however they
do not tell you which search engine(s) your results came from.
My overall opinion of
this new Meta Search Tool and its potential uses is that it is a great option
for various stages of the research process & I like it. Based on its user interface
from the landing page, I would actually use Beaucoup primarily as a Subject
Index; secondarily as Meta Search Tool (Super Search), even though this is the
list it was on. I found that the subjects that were pre-defined would be great
if looking for topic ideas or possibly finding a match to an existing subject
and then being directed to some very specific sources. I found the Super Search
results to be limited, for example I searched Mars Rover & Mars AND Rover
and though different results were returned with each, they numbered ten or less
results each.
For my General Search Tool I chose Lycos,
which I have heard of but never used before. The link for their landing search
page is www.lycos.com .The Southern Oregon
University website describes Lycos as:
Lycos offers both a simple
and an advanced search mode, which provide access to about 50 million web
pages. The simple mode is designed to be a hub for information and includes a
subject directory, a search engine, information sites such as headlines, news,
weather, stocks, etc.
In
their company overview, Lycos says, “[we are] evolving from a single search
engine into a focused network of community and social sites…”There are no
advance search options that I could locate; the default results format is from
the “web” and additional categories are available to specify , which include “images”,
“video”, “news”, “shopping”, and “weather”. Mars Rover returned over five million results,
and Mars AND Rover returned only about one-hundred-fifty-thousand less. The
results page is framed with sponsored links.
They do display a thumbnail from the suggested website to left of each
result. Results are not dated, however what I found most inconvenient or
missing was, the normal Bold Face given to your search terms within the
results, which for me made it more difficult to see how or why they were
referencing each site based on my search terms. This also made it more
difficult to determine if there was a Boolean strategy in place or available.
In
summary, Lycos may be as good as any other general search engine; however,
those whom use their email services or other social media services would likely
be more inclined to be the ones who use Lycos as their default search engine.
With my current knowledge and experience, I would prefer to use Google.com,
specifically www.google.com/advanced_search,
and specifically because of their available advanced search tools and the fact
that I use their social media and email services.
For
my Subject Directory Search I chose to use EDUFRAME, which is described as “A
very comprehensive list of sites organized by subject. If you do not find the
subject you are searching for, use the Search feature. Slightly more difficult
to use than other resources because of the frames…”, by The Southern Oregon
University site. It turns out that I did not care for this tool personally; just
as they said, difficult because it is presented in frames. However, it did
appear to be a wealth of information. It was structured in the form of a
traditional hierarchy system, with just lists of text titles. I abandon it at
this point because there was now search box available. It might be good if looking
for a topic to explore further and is probably easier to use once more familiar
with it.
I continued
with my Subject Index Search by checking out Virtual Reference Shelf @ www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/virtualref.html,
because based on its description it sounded very interesting and likely to be a
great research tool. “The Virtual Reference Shelf is topical list of online
resources for research from the Library of Congress” (The Southern Oregon
University). Their home page
has many available subjects to choose from along with each having its own
subcategories. Best of all, they have a search box, which eventually allows you
options within results to easily narrow or widen your search with a plethora of
available filters. The result page shows a thumbnail for some results, states
format provided (webpage, video, legislation, etc…), you can also print, save,
or send/share for findings and, even subscribe to them. Additionally, you can
how your results are displayed (both visually & contextually).
I
did not find a link stating how to search, but with Mars Rover as the search,
sixteen results were displayed. I then tried Mars AND Rover, the same sixteen
results came back. Lastly, I tried Mars OR Rover, and got back 1418 results.
This means that AND is an implied Boolean operator through this site, and
others can used, such as OR. I found this site would be a great scholarly
research tool for finding relevant subjects and links. I will use it in the
future.
Overall,
depending on what type of research is being performed (academic or personal),
each type of tool has its own benefits, as well as restrictions. For academic research,
the Subject Indexes (created by people) would be a great place to look in addition
to the search tools through our school library site. I honestly would probably
not use Meta Search tools (created by algorithm) on a regular basis, maybe if I
were struggling to get results with my General Search Tool (algorithm), Google
or whichever, then I would try out a Meta. I will continue to use my General
Search Tool (with advance search options or Boolean operators) for both academic
research and personal research.
The
IRIS tutorial for Google searching was very helpful, particularly the link www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/virtualref.html
, which gives additional Boolean style features for Google searching like the
minus sign (-) and the (~) symbol relative to search terms.
