Search Me!

Caffeinate Your Google Search with Google Guide

To those of you who attended my talk today (and anyone who wants to become a Google power searcher), I promised links to Google Guide's Google operators cheat sheets.

We have a number of them, but, depending on your taste, you can check out our coffee mug cheat sheet (coffee, tea, and hot cocoa examples), our extended Advanced Operators Cheat Sheet, and try your hand at a power Googling quiz, Games: Where Did They Come From?, and its cheat sheet.  

And more good news--we are going to start updating the content shortly to assure that you are getting the latest functionality. I'll post here when we have the new content up and running.

What is your favorite Google operator? How about other search engines?

Ad or Information?

I teach a lot of avid readers, plus a healthy number of kids who do not really love reading much. One thing that the savvier non-readers and readers have in common is a sense of page layout in non-fiction books. After all, books have become such a visual feast compared to when I was a kid—which is wonderful for our children, but is changing how kids approach reading for information.

For data-mongers and reluctant readers alike, one of the first things they learn is to look to margin boxes, those stripes in a contrasting color down the outer margin of the page, to find the most intense concentration of information.

(Source: Doherty, Gillian, et al. "Australia and Oceania—Political." The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia Of World Geography with Complete World Atlas. London: Usborne Publishing, 2004. 284-285.)

I find, as a result, that my students tend to identify the stripe down the side of many web pages right away, and go looking there first for information. As adults, we recognize that these are often ads.

However, ads can appear to match a student’s information need very closely. So, a student looking at a page on the Titanic may see links to “The Passengers of the Titanic” and “1912 Titanic (1000s of Products—Sale!),” which can appear highly relevant and entice the student to click.

To the experienced book-reader, the location of these links on the page suggests that they are the “good stuff.” They get confused and frustrated very quickly as they try to access it.

One of my favorite examples recently is a local high school teacher who tells me that his students cite Amish Fireplace ads as sources in their history papers, and do not recognize even more explicit advertisements for what they are—instead thinking of them as information that is “easy to read.”

Unless we actively teach kids about page layout online—where they might expect to find ads and vocabulary that will help identify them (“ads,” “sponsored links,” "sponsored results," "sponsored sites," "preferred partners," etc.), even strong readers will be missing a critical component of their online literacy.

My take away: Teach kids to distinguish ads from content.

What’s yours?

Think By Searching

We have so many wonderful tools these days for finding information.  

They appear intuitive, because the algorithms that make them tick are getting increasingly complex, incorporating all they can about how we combine words to express ideas. On the other hand, they are not actually able to capture how we think. 

So, just as search engines and other tools are reaching out to us, we have to meet them halfway. The exciting news is, they are good enough to help us inform our thinking. But we need to learn their ways and inform their "thinking," as well.

I think by talking. Just ask my husband, who has been with me through a six-year career researching Chinese Sign Language, an obsession with quilting, and over a dozen years as a professional searcher. He'll be the first to tell you that just because I'm a librarian doesn't mean I'm quiet.

But I also think by searching. My relationship with electronic data sources is one of conversation. I propose a topic, my search tool responds. I listen carefully to the feedback I am given, and adjust my approach accordingly. The conversation is, in fact, a very gratifying one, because I receive feedback on two levels: the ideas I am pursuing, as well as my search tools' responses to my chosen syntax.

In the coming months, this blog will share some of my fieldwork observations on how people (both children and adults) behave when they search and research. While there are many excellent sources for learning various search engine commands and ideas for curriculum integration, I haven't found much out there discussing what happens internally during the search and research process - how we actually think it through and make our choices. Since I took my first corporate library job in the mid-1990s, I have been slowly working out how to communicate to people what makes searching work for me, as a professional. Along the way, I'd be delighted to hear your ideas, too.

I think by engagement. Come talk with me....