Untangling the Web: Making the most of social science content

1. Untangling the Web: Making the most of social science content Barbie E. Keiser barbieelene@att.net Ljubljana, Slovenia October 2004

2. Today’s objectives • Understand what information is available • Offer strategies for locating “the best” • Alternatives for gaining access to the Invisible Web

3. Cultivating information expertise • Developing and implementing a system • Keeping up with it all • Accessing unique sources

4. Objectives for any intelligence program • Improve monitoring efforts • Deepen knowledge • Improve ability to recognize and anticipate changes occurring

5. How the Internet helps • Access to information resources, global and local • Timeliness of data (?) • Economics (?)

6. Accessing those important sites • WWW search engines • Web channels (portals) and industry servers (vortals) • Malls and (subject-specific) gateways

7. AltaVista Hotbot WebCrawler Teoma FAST search (http://www.alltheweb.com) Zapmeta Netnose Wondir (http://www.wondir.org) Google (http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/) Soople Mygooglesearch Searching online: Search engines

8. Searching online: Directories • Yahoo • http://dir.yahoo.com/Social_Science/Social_Work/ • http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/ • EINet galaxy • http://www.galaxy.com/b/d?n=23929 • Dmoz • http://www.dmoz.com/Society/ • http://www.dmoz.com/Science/Social_Sciences/ • http://www.dmoz.com/Science/Social_Sciences/Sociology/

9. Why use a Meta-Search engine • Address unknown • Ability to enter search string only once • Speed

10. Simple and advanced search capabilities Number of matches reported from each search engine Integration De-duping of results Ranking Interesting design Good response time Wide choice of search engines used “More like this” feature What to look for and which to choose

11. proFusion Queryster Mamma SeekScan Starting Point (www.stpt.com) Highway 61 FinderSeeker Search Engine Colossus www.arnoldit.com/lists/intlsearch.asp Yahoo, Excite, Lycos Euroseek (http://www.euroseek.net) Europages (http://www.europages.com or http://www.euronline.fr) Mirago (http://www.mirago.co.uk) LookSmart United Kingdom (http://www.looksmart.co.uk) Society (http://www.looksmart.com/eus317916/r?l&) Social Science (http://www.looksmart.com/eus1/eus317836/eus317916/eus53711/r?l&) Political Science (http://www.looksmart.com/eus1/eus317836/eus317916/eus53711/eus149339/r?l&) Metasearchers & non-US search engines

12. ixquick.com Debriefing Ditto.com AltaVista Dogpile All the Web Image Surfer (http://gallery.yahoo.com) WebSEEK (http://persia.ee.columbia.edu:8008/) Amazing Picture Machine (http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm) Web Places Clip Art Searcher (http://www.webplaces.com/search) Dealing with images? Try...

13. Search engine caveats • Size isn’t everything • The freshness test • Handling frames • Dynamically-generated page search capability • Relevancy & links

14. Best of the Bots (http://www.botspot.com) Search Engine Watch Gregg Notess’ Search Engine Showdown (Feature Chart – Search Tips) The Spider’s Apprentice (http://www.monash.com/spidap.html) CyberSkeptic’s Guide (http://www.cyberskeptic.com/cs/) InfoToGo Need help choosing a search engine?

15. Resource Discovery Network (http://rdn.ac.uk) RDN virtual training site (http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk) Sociologist (http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/sociologist) Academic Info (http://www.academicinfo.net) Social Sciences Gateway (http://www.academicinfo.net/subsoc.html) Sociology (http://www.academicinfo.net/soc.html) What’s New (http://www.academicinfo.net/new.html) Social Science Information Gateway (http://www.sosig.ac.uk) Social policy (http://www.sosig.ac.uk/roads/subject-listing/World-cat/socpol.html) Social science methodology (http://www.sosig.ac.uk/roads/subject-listing/World-cat/meth.html) Sociology (http://www.sosig.ac.uk/sociology/ ) HUMBUL (http://www.humbul.ac.uk) LMC Research Portal (http://www.leemizell.com/portal) Social science malls & gateways

16. Internet Scout Report & NSDL (http://scout.cs.wisc.edu) Freepint (http://www.freepint.com) Internet Resources Newsletter (http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/irn.html) Librarians’ Index to the Internet (http://www.lii.org) Society & Social Issues (http://lii.org/search/file/society) Argus Clearinghouse (http://www.clearinghouse.net) Social Sciences & Social Issues (http://www.clearinghouse.net/cgi-bin/chadmin/viewcat/Social_Sciences___Social_Issues?kywd++) BUBL (http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link/) Social Sciences (http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link/linkbrowse.cfm?menuid=2822) Scholarly Internet Resource Collections: Social Sciences & Humanities (http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?category=liberal) Professional assistance

17. WebWhacker (http://www.bluesquirrel.com) Copernic Agent, Tracker, Summarizer WebFerret (http://www.FerretSoft.com) Bookmarklets List All Links (http://www.bookmarklets.com/tools/data/index.phtml) Alexa Toolbar Google “More Like This” feature Google Alerts (http://www.googlealert.com) Watch That Page (http://www.watchthatpage.com) Infominder (http://www.infominder.com) Change Detection (http://www.changedetection.com) ChangeDetect (http://www.changedetect.com) TrackEngine (http://www.trackengine.com) Karnak (http://www.karnak.com) Website-Watcher (http://www.aignes.com) Trackle Add-in tools

18. Browser prompt to install character sets Fonts in Cyberspace (http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/) Industry- and country-specific resources Human intervention Technical translations Glossaries (http://www.xlation.com/glossaries/) Software Free online translator services Business-related Quotes online (http://www.worldlingo.com) Travel-related Learning languages Verbix Web tools Links to other resources Limited options (http://www.wordreference.com) Google language tools (http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en) Babelfish (http://world.altavista.com/) AllWords (http://www.allwords.com/34wlinks.php) Machine translation (http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/aw.nsf/html/mt) Dictionary.com – Translate (http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html) Fagan Finder Translator Wizard (http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/) Foreignword.com Free online translator service (http://www.prospector.cz/Services/Translation/) Freetranslation.com OneLook Dictionaries Systran Language Translation (http://www.systransoft.com/) Yourdictionary.com Cross-language information retrieval sources (http://www.ece.umd.edu/medlab/mlir/) Translation reference materials database (http://www.glennsguide.com/) Translation plus

19. How can we get the information we need when we need it?: Push vs. pull • Traditional information sources (print & electronic) • Books/e-books (“born digital”) • Journals/e-journals (with no analog equivalent) • Alert services (direct mail & e-mail) • Database producers, vendors, & content aggregators • Personalized news sources/alerting services • Field-specific sites and searches • Go direct (single sites) • Virtual everything

20. What to look for • Criteria for resources and research • Delivery services • Archived data • Sophisticated search capabilities • Tips for comparing data • The more detailed the publication, the greater the time lag • The more accurate the statistics, the greater the time lag • Appreciate how the Internet changes the equation

21. Source credibility Organizations and individual authors Pay attention to extensions Who links to them? To which sites do they link? Advocacy in check Purpose Target audience Objectivity Relevance to your work/inquiry Coverage and scope Integration Date of creation Frequency (and timeliness) of updates Quality Reliability Validity Accuracy/Error rate Meaning over time Completeness & Consistency Aesthetics Accessibility/Ease of use Output options Documentation Customer support Value-to-cost ratio Privacy Site map Web site evaluation criteria

22. International agencies & NGOs Government sources: National, state, & local Associations & not-for-profit organizations National advocacy organizations Local community groups Universities, research centers, & think tanks Identification Collections Libraries and other collections Public Academic Virtual Classes of resources

23. United Nations (http://www.un.org) UN System (http://www.unsystem.org) Agencies within the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (http://www.unhchr.ch/) Commissions Links to agencies (http://www.unece.org/stats/links.htm UN Economic & Social Commission of Asia & the Pacific (http://www.unescap.org) Specific publications Convention on the Rights of the Child (http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm) World Bank Group (http://www.worldbank.org) International Monetary Fund (http://www.imf.org) Regional Development Banks (ADB, EBRD, CDV) Regional Conferences and Cooperatives OAS, OECD, ASEAN, PAHO European Union (http://www.europa.eu.int) Navigating EU Information (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/GSSI/eu.html) Tips and Caveats International (and regional) agencies and NGOs

24. National Health & Human Services Ministries Projects, Papers, & Research Methodology Second and third-tier departments within agencies Administration of Children and Families Cross-system issues Government-funded research Grant projects and reports Official Government Servers (http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/) Statistical agencies (http://www.ssb.no/english/links) US Census Bureau Statistical Agencies International (http://www.census.gov/main/www/stat_int.html) White House Social Statistics Briefing Room (http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/crime.html) Government sources and sites: Federal (US and other nation), state (provincial), & local

25. Finding US government agencies/resources • Firstgov.gov • FedWorld.gov • GPO Access – Government Information Locator Service (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/gils/index.html) • For directory & links (http://www.access.gpo.gov) • For searching (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs) • The Blue Pages (http://www.usbluepages.gov) • GovSearch (http://nwbuildnet.com/nwbn/govbot.html) • UncleSam (http://www.google.com/unclesam) • FedStats (http://www.fedstats.gov/cgi-bin/A2Z.cgi)

26. Academic libraries help to identify government agencies & documents • US Federal Government Agencies Directory (http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/fedgov.html) • Government Information on the Web Subject Index (http://library.stmarytx.edu/acadlib/doc/us/subjects/submain.htm) • University of Michigan Documents Center (http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/webdirec.html) • InfoMine’s Scholarly Internet Resource Collections (http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?govpub)

27. State & local government gateways and locator services • State and Local Governments (http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/state/stategov.html) • Gov Spot – State Government (http://www.govspot.com/state) • Library Spot Government Info (http://www.libraryspot.com/government.htm) • State and Local Government on the Net (http://www.statelocalgov.net/index.hcfm) • Multistate Legislative Presence on the Internet (http://www.multistate.com/content/state_local/index.htm)

28. Laws & regulations • Search for legislation or regulations on government Web sites • Legal portals • Law schools (& law school libraries) • Law reviews • Lexis & Westlaw • Legal Research Network (http://www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/index.html) • Legal Research Network (http://papers.ssrn.com) • From the State Capitals Newsletters (http://statecapitals.com)

29. The ‘Lectric Law Library (http://www.lectlaw.com) Courts.net Legal Engine MoreLaw CataLaw (Click on ‘Topics’) Hieros Gamos (http://www.hg.org/journals.html) LawSource (http://www.lawsource.com) FindLaw: Legal Subjects Index (http://www.findlaw.com) American Bar Association (http://www.abanet.org/lawlink/home.html) American Lawyer Media (http://www.law.com/index.shtml) Commercial law resources & links

30. WWW Virtual Law Library (http://www.law.indiana.edu/v-lib) Catholic University Law School Catalog (http://columbo.law.cua.edu/) George Washington University Law School Catalog (http://jacob.nlc.gwu.edu/) American University Law School Library (http://library.wcl.american.edu/) Meta-Index for Legal Research (http://gsulaw.gsu.edu/metaindex/) Family & Juvenile Law @ WashU (http://www.washlaw.edu) Law about Family, Marriage, & Children from the Cornell Legal Information Institute (http://www.law.cornell.edu/index.html) or the Directory of Legal Academia (http://fatty.law.cornell.edu) Lawlinks from Kent University (UK) – Special Topics (http://library.kent.ac.uk/library/lawlinks/special.htm) Institute for Advanced Legal Studies Child Law (http://ials.sas.ac.uk/links/eichild.htm) Family Law (http://ials.sas.ac.uk/links/eifamily.htm) Michigan Child Law Research Center (http://www.law.umich.edu/CentersAndPrograms/childlaw/) National Center for Adoption Law (http://www.law.capital.edu/adoption/) Academic law libraries

31. International, regional, and national Topic-specific News Statistical data Online magazines E-newsletters Membership lists Associations and other not-for-profit agencies

32. Finding associations, foundations, & not-for-profit agencies • Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations • American Society of Association Executives Gateway to Associations Online (http://info.asaenet.org/gateway/OnlineAssocSlist.html) • Associations on the Net (http://www.ipl.org/ref/AON) • Social Sciences (http://www.ipl.org/div/aon/browse/soc00.00.00/) • Social Sciences News (http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/soc99.00.00/) • Sociology (http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/soc35.00.00/) • Gender & Sexuality (http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/soc50.00.00/) • History (http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum30.00.00/) • Political Science (http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/law30.00.00/)

33. Government agencies Associations/foundations Consulting organizations Other organizations similar to your own (e.g., communities) Center for the Study of Social Policy (http://www.cssp.org/publications/index.php) Research organizations and think tanks NIRA’s World Directory of Think Tanks (http://www.nira.go.jp/linke/tt-link/index.html) Sources & Experts: Universities and Think Tanks (http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/internet/experts.html) eScholarship Repository (http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship) Collections PolicyFile Index of Urban Documents (http://www.urbdocs.com) Case studies and research reports

34. Published Articles & Working Papers Experts Course Syllabi Electronic Access to Social Science Research Resources (http://www.ou.edu/ap/lis5703/) Bibliographies & Pathfinders Sociology (http://library.albany.edu/subject/sociology_main.html) SocioSite (http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite) PENN Library (http://www.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/res/sr.cgi?community=81&resourcetype=25) Scout Portal Tool (http://lawscout.uakron.edu) What can you get from academic institutions?

35. Databases Alcohol Studies Database (http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/alcohol_studies/alcohol) National Data Archive – Child Abuse (http://www.ndacan.cornell.edu/) Adoption History Project (http://www.vu.msu.edu/preview/sw891c/) National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/) Florida State University Criminal Justice Links (http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/cjlinks) Case Studies COLIS/European Case Clearing House database (http://www.ecch.cranfield.ac.uk) IMD Case Studies (http://www.imd.ch/research/publications/#) Dissertations Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations (http://www.ndltd.org/browse.html) Proquest (http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/search) Current Research Proquest (http://wwwlib.umi.com/cresearch/main) What can you get from academic institutions?

36. Finding academic institutions granting degrees in ____________ • WWW Virtual Library: Education (www.csu.edu.au/education/library.html) • EINet Galaxy’s Education Sources database (http://galaxy.einet.net/galaxy/Social-Sciences/Education.html) • Higher Education Resource Hub (http://www.higher-ed.org/) • Distance Learning

37. Where to find it and who can help • General press (newspapers, magazines, newsletters, & e-newsletters) • Social science literature (scholarly press, peer-reviewed journals, & e-journals) • Libraries, newsgroups, & scholarly discussions (including listserves and bulletin boards) • Experts, consultants, & witnesses • Conferences, events, & exhibitions • Traditional database options & The Invisible Web

38. What’s newsworthy? • Ad-hoc requests • Stream of information • Subject-specific

39. Wire services Traditional broadcasters & news programs Newspapers Magazines Electronic versions of print products e-zines Personalized news services News sources

40. Wire services • Individual sites • Search engine indexing and directory services • Personalized news services • Web sites with feeds and links • Traditional online databases

41. Television/radio networks Specific news programs on those networks Joint ventures Transcripts News & Information via Streaming Audio & Video (http://www.freepint.com/gary/audio.htm) NewsIQ Gary Price’s NewsCenter (http://www.freepint.com/gary/newscenter.htm) TheFeedRoom (http://www.feedroom.com) Live Radio & Television from Around the World (http://broadcast-live.com/) Web Radio Online (http://www.web-radio.com/in_list.cfm) World Radio Network (http://www.wrn.org/) BRS Web-Radio International (www.web-radio.com/in_a.html) Radio Locator vTuner NewsSearchPortal WorldLinkTV World News Network (http://www.wn.com) Traditional broadcasters and news programs

42. International Regional reputation National Business Local Go direct Gateways & collections of links Academic institutions Commercial “Traditional” online databases & content aggregators Personalized news services Email alerts for current awareness Newspapers

43. Yahoo! (http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Newspapers/By_Region) Internet Public Library Newspapers (http://ipl.si.umich.edu/div/news) AJR Newslink (www.newslink.org) NewsDirectory: Newspapers and Media (www.ecola.com or www.newsdirectory.com) World News Index (http://wni.harold.nu) Newspapers on the Web (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rpeterso/newspapr.htm) Newslibrary (http://www.newslibrary.com) NewPages Online: Alternatives in Print & Media (http://www.newpages.com/) Opinion-Pages (http://www.opinion-pages.org) Newspaper Gateways

44. Personalized news services: Push vs. pull vs. cast • NewsPage • YellowBrix (now handling ClariNet news services) • NEWSdesk • CRAYON.net • Scoop! & ScoopDirect (http://www.intellisearchnow.com)

45. When choosing a news delivery service… • Consider • The type of information you need • Cost limitations • Presentation format • Delivery mechanism(s) • Limitations on redistribution

46. Access to multiple titles with sophisticated search capability Traditional databases Web-based services Pathfinder model Electronic versions of print products Enhanced versions of print product Abbreviated versions of print (selected articles from print edition) Archives & full-text Created for the Web Magazines & Newsletters

47. MagPortal FindArticles MetaPress Questia HighBeam Research – formerly eLibrary (http://www.highbeam.com) Biblioalerts Sociology (http://www.biblioalerts.com/biblio/sociology.asp) Digital Librarian (http://www.digital-librarian.com/) Social Sciences (http://www.digital-librarian.com/socialsciences.html) Newsletter Access Society & Culture (http://www.newsletteraccess.com/search.php?a=cat&s=0&l=25&cat_id=53) Magazines & Newsletters

48. Publisher alerts Taylor & Francis (http://www.tandf.co.uk) Elsevier (http://www.socscinet.com) Ingenta Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (http://www.alpsp-collection.org/) Highwire (http://highwire.stanford.edu/) Project Muse (http://muse.jhu.edu/) Open access Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org) Lists Related to the Open Access Movement (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#actions) American Scientist Open Access Forum (http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/) or mirror (http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html) Scholarly journals

49. 1Cate (http://www.openly.com/1cate/) ARL Directory of Scholarly Electronic Journals & Discussion Groups (http://www.arl.org/scomm/edir/index.html) Scientific Literature Digital Library (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cis) DSpace (https://hpds1.mit.edu/index.jsp) EPrints (http://opcit.eprints.org/explorearchives.shtml) eScholarship Repository (http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship) Extenza (http://www.extenza-eps.com/extenza/researcherHome.do) getCITED (http://www.getcited.org/) Project Euclid (http://projecteuclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Home) Figaro (http://www.figaro-europe.net/) National e-Journals Initiative (http://www.nesli2.ac.uk/) Scitation (http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/MY-SCI/default/index_content.jsp?jsessionid=2350291079807743664) Scholarly Articles Research Alerting (http://www.tandf.co.uk/sara/) Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html) & Publishing Weblog (http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm) SPARC Open Access Newsletter (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos) Scholarly journals: Individual publisher sites, aggregators, subject-specific, OpenAccess

50. The WWW Virtual Library (http://vlib.org) Search (http://vlib.iit.edu/search/) Social Sciences Virtual Library (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/socsci/) Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org) Library Spot (http://www.libraryspot.com) University of Geneva (http://www.unige.ch/biblio/ses/plus00.html) Library Catalogs Library of Congress (http://catalog.loc.gov/) RLG (http://redlightgreen.com) Ohio Link Library Catalog (http://olc1.ohiolink.edu) Galileo – University of Georgia Libraries (http://gil.uga.edu) Social Issues Collection (http://content.lib.washington.edu/socialweb/) Libraries: Public, academic, and virtual