Metodix

Search

If internet was a library, it would be the world's largest one when measuring the number of data, and at the same time the smallest one from the perspective of physical size. It would always be open and would offer unlimited loan periods. The library would also offer opportunities to put your own works in display, e.g. poems or photographs. Printing and distribution costs would not be an obstacle for distribution. In addition, anyone could contact it from his or her own living room. The library's whole wide world could be managed on your computer screen.

Internet grows in high speed both with respect to the amount of data and the number of its users. It is difficult to present any accurate figures about the amount of data it consists of, but at the moment the best search engines already scan over 200 million documents. In addition, the amount of data and the number of internet users increases enormously, doubling its size every few years. If the growth remained the same, the number of internet users would exceed the number of the world's population in the year 2000.

Once you have found interesting places on the www, you can start maintaining your own information system with the help of the bookmarks and favorites-lists of your browser programmes.

Before starting the actual information search, you should take a general look at the subject area. Here are a few tips for education scientists:

- Encyclopedia of educational research
- International encyclopedia of education
- Handbook of research on teaching, vol. I, II, III
- Encyclopedia of human behavior
- Encyclopedia of psychology

Please note also that there are some good quality portals on the internet that consist of good general overviews on practically every theme. One example of these is Encyclopedia Britannica. This portal includes a 32-volume encyclopaedia, news service and an English dictionary. Nowadays, using this portal is not free of charge.

Until now the most common way of searching information has been going to a library and reading through the backs of books with one's neck bent sidewards. To my experience this method is a good and favourable one, since it is an easy and pleasant way of making discoveries. However, there are three problems. First, you can only find those references that happen to be present at that very moment. Second, this search method is extremely slow. And third, this method is rather inaccurate, since you cannot look for books that have been arranged in an alphabetical order according to the names or words. On the other hand, if you manage to find one book about the subject of your interest, you will find a list of references in that book and thereby easily find several other books about the same issue, which again have long lists of references and so on.

A more advanced way of searching information is based on utilising different kinds of bibliographies and abstract publications. This way of searching information is accurate, since the search can be based on themes and keywords. All the books and articles published in the world can be found easily. For education scientists we can recommend especially CIJE and RIJE. Finnish books and articles can be found on the CD-ROMs of FINNICA and ALEKSI, which can be found in every general library.

The present day libraries offer also more varied and faster ways of searching information. Many libraries have computers, which can be used in examining the references in the library. With a computer you can search books according to e.g. the name of an author or a keyword, which makes the search faster and more accurate. However, it needs to be pointed out that information may be found, but there is a possibility that you are unable to use it. For example, you may find a book called "Network pedagogy" but someone has already borrowed it. Several libraries have an internet service, which makes it possible for a customer to browse through the references. For example, the library for the University of Jyväskylä has this service.

Figure 1. JYKDOK: Collection database of the university of Jyväskylä.

Other similar collection databases can be found e.g. from the web pages of the Finnish general libraries. Nowadays, also several reference databases can be browsed on the net. Many of these databases are chargeable but there are also a few that are free. For those who are interested in education and teaching, I would highly recommend ERIC.

Search words

The easiest way of finding information is to use correct search words. You should also take into consideration that you need to translate your search word at least into English. It is a good idea to look for dictionaries concerning your own field. You should also see if there is any help available on the internet for finding the right search words and translations.

Most collection and reference databases offer a possibility to combine searches and/or search words. Therefore, you can find what you are looking for with only one search. At its simplest, this means using phrases AND, OR and NOT. For example, if you wish to find something that includes both A and B, you will write A AND B. If you wish to find all the As and all the Bs at the same time, you will write A OR B. . it is also possible to find all the As that do not include B, the only thing you need to do is to write A NOT B. The figure 2 will illustrate these three search possibilities.

Figure 2. Basic search alternatives.

It is possible to search information on the net either by using subject indices or word searches. The main difference between these two search methods is that there is less information available in the subject indices but it is of better quality than information received through word searches in search engines. New search services are constantly created and the old ones are changed. At the moment the leading subject index is Yahoo and the most efficient word search can be found at Google . In Finland a good subject index is WebStudio and a search engine www.fi . Excellent starting points for a search are also the web pages of Finnish Statistical Centre and the frontpage of the Finnish general libraries . A real professional also checks the pages of the Search Engine Watch , where you can usually find the most recent information on the current events in the world of search engines.

In order to make the searches more efficient, it is good to take a look at the search terms of each search engine. More information is given about each programme in the list of search engines. For more extensive searches, there are separate search agent programmes . These have to be installed onto the hard disk of the computer. You can find more information about the search agent programmes in the introduction of search agents .

On the internet, there is a large number of virtual libraries, which differ from ordinary libraries mainly in respect to the fact that documents are always available. In a virtual library you don't have to make any long distance loans or reservations, since you can always get the material directly to your screen. In addition, there are bibliographies on several different subject areas on the net.

Internet has revived the old and reliable researchers' aid called EndNote. This programme is an excellent help when writing research reports and searching information from the databases on the internet. The basic idea of the programme is that references can be saved into a database. The references are marked in the word processing program in the form [Smith#5]. Once the text is ready for printing, you can choose the form of references and also the form of the list of references. A test version of the programme can be downloaded from the pages of Niles .