INASP Links & Resources
USING THE INTERNET:
Search tools and search tips

Beaucoup Search Engines
Guide to 2,500+ search engines, accessible by broad categories and small sub-categories. http://www.beaucoup.com/

Country Based Search Engines
Compiled by Phil Bradley, this is an interesting inventory of, and links to, some 1,500 country and regional search engines covering 167 countries and regions, including a growing number of country-specific search engines for countries in the developing world, e.g. Afghanistan, Algeria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Fiji, Ghana, Guyana, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tonga, and many more. And there are no less than 51 links to search engines for India, or 29 for Thailand. http://www.philb.com/countryse.htm 

Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial
From the Library at the University of California at Berkeley, this is an excellent and easy to use tutorial to the latest and best search tools, and the best search strategies - progressing from simple searches to more advanced searching - together with a general introduction to the Internet and WWW. In addition to recommending search strategies that are adaptive to your topic, it provides detailed search instructions to five major search engines. (Google, Altavista Advanced Search, Infoseek, Northern Light, and FAST Search). http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

Scirus
A specialist search engine for scientific, technical and medial information sources. It offers two types of services: Web sources provide information for which no subscription or online registration is required. Scirus searches the entire Web and excludes sites with no scientific content. Examples of Web sources are university Web sites, learned society pages, scientists home pages, preprint servers, commercial companies, etc. Membership sources are information sources for which either a paid subscription or online registration is required, and often including peer-reviewed scientific information not directly accessible by standard search engines. http://scirus.com/ 

Search for the Invisible Web (by Chris Sherman)
An interesting article from the Guardian which deals with the fact that a huge amount of information on the Web - e.g. non-text files, certain Web-accessible databases, patent records, telephone directories, yellow pages, interactive maps, current news, etc. - most search engines either cannot or will not add to their Web indexes, and/or their search crawlers cannot penetrate. The author makes a number of recommendations how to navigate the invisible Web, suggesting a number of "pathfinders" to explore the Web's terra incognita and the hidden realms of the invisible Web.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,547140,00.html 

Search IQ
Provides access to a very large number of search engines and directories, and combines this with independent search engine reviews and rankings, to help you identify the right search tool for the job--and those with the highest IQ! Also offers tips to improve your searching techniques, with tutorials and guides. http://www.search.com/ 

Search Tools-A Guide
Excellent guide to, and evaluations of, the major European Internet search tools, global search tools, meta search engines, meta sites, people/Email address finders, and various special search tools. Maintained by Richard Eskins at the Department of Information & Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University. http://www.mmu.ac.uk/h-ss/dic/main/search.htm

Searchcom
A "people" metasearcher that searches several major Email directories concurrently, to help you find Email addresses, or find home pages or phone numbers. It should be pointed out however that even the best Email directories will not be able to track down addresses of your friends or colleagues unless their Email addresses have actually been registered with one or other Email directory. http://www.search.com/

Searchability-Guides to Specialized Search Engines
A useful descriptive guide to specialized search engines, and to search directories of search engines, evaluating their subject coverage and effectiveness. http://www.searchability.com/

Searchengine Watch
Critical reviews and evaluations of search engines, with direct links to articles, ratings, charts etc. http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/resources/reviews.html

Searchtools.com
Provides information, news and advice about Web site searching technology. It includes guidelines how to choose, implement and maintain search tools for your own Web site, together with search tools product listings, overviews, product reviews, surveys, and links to other sites and articles providing general site search information. http://searchtools.com

The Spider's Apprentice
How to get the most from search engines, tips for search strategies, and more; this is a helpful guide for beginners. http://www.monash.com/spidap.html

Surfing with a Purpose. Process and Strategy Put to the Test on the Internet
Useful guidelines by Keith Gresham, published in Educom Review Sept./Oct. 1998, setting out a strategy for searching the Internet, with five focused test cases using a number of search tools. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/erm9851.html

This page was last updated on: 07 July 2003 © International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) 1998-2003.