This is a list of search links made for my Global Journalism class. As with all
lists of this sort it is only a starting place and in no way compleat.
Please use the comment function to uppdate, add to or comment on the sites
linked to here.
Newsgroups [definition] also known as Usenet
groups.google.com is the major
web-based repository and search engine with an archive of Usenet articles
dating back to 1981.
Finding appropiate Newsgroups
news.newusers.questions is a Usenet self
help (moderated) group where new usersers can ask for help
Netscan is Microsoft-based service
giving detailed reports on the activity of Usenet newsgroups, the authors who
participate in them, and the conversation threads that emerge from their
activity. Using the Netscan tool users can get reports about any newsgroup for
any day, week, month, quarter, or year, since September 1999. For the more
sociology oriented user. Also allows for tracking of an individuals postings
over multiple newsgroups which can be a usefull journalistic tool.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) [definition]
News.answers is a major collecting place
for uppdated FAQ-lists
The Internet FAQ Archives are also very
usefull. [Advanced search page recomended]
Discussion
Groups [defination]
groups.msn.com
groups.yahoo.com
Discussion groups usually have a particular subject which they discuss [For
example the Autism Sweden group which is a yahoo
group for families of Autistic Children in Sweden to discuss current issues
related to autism, or groups on and around AIDS]
They generally have a searchable directory[yahoo MSN] of available groups.
Chat [definition]
An online
forum where people can chat online (talk by
broadcasting messages to people on the same forum in real time). Sometimes
these venues are moderated either by limiting who is allowed to speak (not
common) or by having moderation volunteers patrolling the venue watching for
disruptive or otherwise undesirable behavior.
A good site for finding chat is Deanna´s World (look in the reagonal area to see if there are chats
in your country listed)
News
Alerts
These
services allow you to monitor the global (with reservations of course)
newsflow.
Most services have an email service allowing you to have key worded searches
and items delivered to you mailbox.
Google News Alerts monitors Google News which can search
and browse 4,500 news sources updated continuously.
News.yahoo.com is Yahoos take on
news monitoring with the adjecentalert
service.
Several countries have local version. A good Swedish site is Eniro - Nyhetssök
Expert Networks [see seperate posting]
There
are a number of expert networks around. One of the oldest is ProfNet but there are a
large number of local and regonal services. In
Sweden there is expertsvar [in english]
Search Engines
There
are a huge amount of search engines available.
The "usual suspects" are Google and Yahoo with MSN-search and Ask Jeeves also in the pack.
There are the meta search engines that will look in
several other services and colate the results for you. Examples of meta search
engines are Dogpile, Mamma and Excite.
A new trend is clustering. Related searches are grouped together around central
keywords or concepts. Results of a search for the keyword "genetics"
will be shown in clusters such as biology, molecular genetics, cancer etc. [example]
Clustering can be seen as a half-way house between textual resulta and visual
results.
To see how search results can be shown visually, with interconnected keyword
culsters linked by "lifelines" go to Kartoo (unfortunately you will need Flash installed to see
the results).
Country specific search engines are also quite usefull. They hava a smaller
catchment area and are therefore often more up to date than the global engines.
You can find them at searchenginecolossus.com or Danny Sullivan´s list.
An excellent collection of search engines is available from searchenginewatch.com
See also the list of topic based search engines at allsearchengines.com
RSS
RSS, an acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary, is an XML based protocol that allows for the
automatic distribution of Internet content via RSS aggregators or readers. RSS
allows you to receive free updates by subscribing (or clicking on buttons
labeled ‘RSS’ or 'XML') to information from sites that publish content (e.g.
news outlets or bloggers). Publishers of information may make information
available to users in this format to save time required to visit multiple web
sites individually.
Weblogs and news media sites share a common strength and a common
weakness. With frequent updates, these sites help us keep track of the latest
news, opinions, and rumors. Unfortunately, the frequent updates mean that we
spend more time trying to keep up with them. So, we can check all of the news
Web sites and blogs of interest every day, starting from our bookmarks or some
other source. But this gets tedious rather quickly, especially as the number of
sources of interest multiplies.
to find something that summarizes the new content, presents it in a compact
format, combines multiple sources in one interface, and provides links to the
full content to make it easy to pick and choose which new articles to read. And
this is exactly what a news aggregator
is designed to do.
There are two forms of aggregators, stand alone and web-based.
Databases:
There are two kinds of databases, free and
pay-for.
Examples of pay-for databases are: Dialog, Factiva, MediaArkivet.
There are a huge ammount of databases covering many areas of research -
medical, financial, media etc.
By going througe a university or public library system you can often access
these services for free.
Students at Stockholm University are advised to look at the database section [in english] at
Stockholm university library (sub)
Examples of free, so called "invisible web", "dark web" or
"hidden web" databases can be found at the following sites;
http://invisible-web.net/about.html
This site is a companion to The Invisible Web: Finding Hidden
Internet Resources Search Engines Can't See by Chris Sherman and Gary Price.
It includes a directory of some of the best resources the Invisible Web
has to offer. The directory includes resources that are informative, of high
quality, and contain worthy information from reliable information providers
that are not visible to general-purpose search engines.
Choosing Invisible Web Databases
A good catalogue of databases, focusing on accademic and scientific areas.
Accademic webscout:
A good collection of "hidden web" resources from the Santa Ana
College Web Scout project
An excellent source for all
database-related information is the Resourceshelf
blog written by Gary Price.
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