TABLE OF CONTENTS

This, Pointers 4 Searching, Searching 4 Pointers, is an annotated bibliography (webliography). Its purpose is to provide you with starting points for methods and strategies for using the Internet to find academic information as well as become familiar with the advantages/disadvantages and strengths/weaknesses of Internet searching.

It does this through a series of topics:

1. The Internet - This is the briefest of introductions to the Internet.

2. Data types - A description of the various ways information formats available through the Internet include: HTML pages, mailing lists, newsgroup postings, books, serials, bibliographic citations, definitions, maps, government reports, etc.

3. About Searching - Searching techniques and output are similar and dissimilar to traditional online searching: Boolean logic, regular expressions, relevance ranking.

4. Search Engines - Services like AltaVista, Hotbot, Excite, and DejaNews, attempt to index and provide searching mechanisms for subsets of Internet-based information.

5. Other searching services - There are many other search engines indexing and providing access to locally developed Internet information like WAIS, Harvest, mailing list archives, regular expressions, and commerical indexing applications.

6. Fee-based services - There are some information providers whose services are available through the Internet but require payment in order to be used: Dialog, JSTOR, EbscoHost, UMI Proquest, SilverPlatter, Wilson Index, America Online, etc.

7. Browsable lists - Collections of Internet resources supplement and compliment Internet indexes: Yahoo, A2Z, WWW Virtual Library, etc.

8. Knowledge Management and Information Evaluation - Methods describing how-to effectively keep your Internet information under control are outlined here.

9. Ladder of Understanding - The Internet effects the principles of librarianship, or does it?

Pointers 4 Searching, Searching 4 Pointers was originally designed as a half-day workshop to be augmented with group activities, presentations, and demonstrations. At the same time, this bibliography, the handout for the workshop, was written to be able to stand on its own as a reference for using the Internet to search for information in general.

AVAILABILITY

• PDF - This version is for printing, not reading on the screen
  Location: <URL:http://www.infomotions.com/musings/pointers/texts/pointers.pdf>

• ASCII Text - This is the simplest version in terms of formatting.
  Location: <URL:http://www.infomotions.com/musings/pointers/texts/pointers.txt>

• MacWrite - Here you will find a MacWrite Pro version.
  Location: <URL:http://www.infomotions.com/musings/pointers/texts/pointers.hqx>

• HTML - This is the online version.
  Location: <URL:http://www.infomotions.com/musings/pointers/>

Enjoy, and I hope you find what you seek.

APPENDIX A: SIMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY

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