Most people, even highly educated ones believe that an article, a picture, a video or anything can be found just by typing it in the search box of one of the major web search engine. This is not entirely true, for the simple fact that a web search depends first; on the type of the search engine that particular website uses. There are two types of search engines. In one hand, there are the individual search engines which compile their own searchable databases on the web. On the other hand, there are the metasearchers, which do not compile databases. Metasearchers search engines do not crawl the web. search the databases of multiple sets of individual search engines simultaneously. Second, a web search depends also on the rarity of the word, picture, videos, person...For example, finding a Nancy Pelosi's letter can be much harder to find on the web than a Barack Obama letter. Third and most importantly, the techniques that the person uses to do the search. In order to locate and retrieve a piece of information on the web, a strategy is often needed. For instance, knowing the website to go to in order to get the information, the specificity of the query, sign, mark or symbol.
Here are some examples of Web-searches and the methods used to find them.
1. Find a website that Host the photographs of Eleanor Roosevelt, George Pompidou, Adi Amin Dada, and Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Method of search: Go to google main page, then click on image and then image advanced search. And just type all the names in the search box. The picture was found in the website hereby www.titoville.com/voditelji.html
2. Find a poem about the first world war that contains the line: The Kestrel hovering by day.
Method of search: First go to google main page and then just type The Kestrel hovering by day into quotes. The line will be found in this website: http://www.bartleby.com/266/82.html
3. Find an image of a banner of from the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts that reads: “Shall a Republic which Could not Bear the Bonds of a king, Cradle a Bondage Which a King Abolished.”
Method of search: Just the type the entire quoted query. The best result will show in the Massachusetts Historical Society Website. http://www.masshist.org/database/onview.cfm?display=print&queryID=1730
4. A letter from George Washington to Timothy Pikering in which Washington complains about “certain forged letters” intended to wound his character and “deceive the people.”
Method of search: Google main page, then type George Washington correspondences in the search box. Finally search by key word within the website by typing Timothy Pickering and certain forged letters.
Scavenger Hunt
Sinclair Allen
History 493/Digital History
Dr. Jon B. Olsen
Posts
You make a good point. Most people take the way that search engines work for granted. They expect that they will automatically find what they are looking for by typing in a generic keyword. They become easily frustrated when they do not always get exactly the result that they were looking for.
ReplyDeletePeople need a basic skill-set to use websites effectively. The more advanced peoples’ skills, the better their results and the less time and energy they will need to spend looking something up.