50 Search Engines You Probably Don’t Use Yet

A cross post from http://edudemic.com

Students, teachers and the public turn to their librarians for help researching everything from technology to genealogy to homework help and lesson plans. Even if your library is equipped with subscriptions and memberships to top of the line databases and online journals, you’ve probably had to get creative during a patron’s requested search for something unfamiliar.

Next time, though, you can turn to one of these 50 search engines, designed to pull from the Web only the information you really need.

Meta Search and Multi Search Engines

These meta search and multi search engines can search numerous engines and sites at once, maximizing the number of results you get each time you conduct a search.

1. Ms. Freckles: Adorable Ms. Freckles can search online for different file types, definitions, translations, film, finance sites, and a lot more all at once.
2. Kart00: This cartoon-inspired search engine lets you hover over results to get a preview of the site before you open it. Results are also organized by topic so that you can narrow down your search and organize hits.
3. Fazzle: Search the web’s best, the entire web, downloads, images, videos, audio or headline news. You can also select an advanced search to find incredibly specific results.
4. Trexy: This site saves your search memory so that you don’t have search multiple times on different engines.
5. Mamma: Here at “the mother of all search engines,” librarians search the web or video. Next to your results is an option to refine your search by choosing a suggested category.
6. 1-Page Multi Search: Type your search into one or several of the following search engines at once: Alta Vista, AOL, EntireWeb, Gigablast, Hot Bot, Lycos, Scrub, Yahoo!, Google, YouTube, Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, and a lot more.
7. iZito: Busy librarians who are constantly finding new reference sites and search engines will like iZito because of its ability to save your history in an easy drop down tab.

Multimedia and Interactive

For help finding pictures, podcasts, music and shareware, use these search engines.

8. Metacafe: Find videos on this site if you want a change from YouTube.
9. Songza: Patrons looking for music can use this search engine, which “lets you listen to any song or band.” You can also search the featured list or top played list.
10. Picsearch: This large photo search engine has more than 2 billion images in its directory.
11. Get a Podcast: Search for podcasts all around the web in this directory.
12. Shareware: If you need to install new software programs on your library computers, turn to Shareware first, which pulls up tons of free programs and downloads.
13. Public Radio Fan: Find information for thousands of public radio stations on this site. You can find the times of different broadcasts, station names, podcasts and more.

Google Search Engines

A Google search doesn’t just mean typing in a keyword on the homepage and seeing what pops up. Try out these niche search engines sponsored by Google to find books, images and more information that librarians will find useful.

14. Google Image Search: Ask Google to bring up the most popular images on the web with this engine.
15. Google Scholar: Get connected to scholarly journals and publications here.
16. Google Books: Search online copies of books on this search engine, which features categories like literature and science fiction to biology and linguistics to highly cited to categories organized by subject and keyword.
17. Alerts: Set up Google Alerts for any subject so that you’ll get results sent to your inbox every time there’s a new site, blog or keyword mention on the web.

Great Niche Sites for Librarians

From family friendly and kid-safe searches to science and medical search engines, these niche sites can help you with very specific research projects.

18. Scirus: Pull up science-related results on this research-oriented search engine. You can find “not only journal content but also scientists’ homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information.”
19. Librarians’ Internet Index: Here you’ll be connected to quality, authoritative sites. Search by keyword or narrow down your search by browsing categories like business, government, media, health, computers, or the arts and humanities.
20. Family Friendly Search: Librarians at elementary and middle schools, as well as public librarians, may be interested in directing patrons to this site, which is safe for kids.
21. Intute: This British search engine lets you pick search options in the following categories for a specialized search: science and technology, arts and humanities, social sciences, and the health and life sciences.
22. PubMed: PubMed is one of the premier search engines for medical students and researchers. You can find journal articles, citations, clinical information and more.
23. Meta-Index for U.S. Legal Research: On the GSU College of Law site, librarians and patrons can take advantage of this meta-index which brings up judicial opinions, legislation and more.
24. Internship Programs: College librarians may want to direct students to this search engine, which connects searchers to internship opportunities.
25. Congoo: For current events and news searches, use Congoo to connect you to the latest in technology, industry, business, world news, finance, politics, Internet trends and more.
26. CataLaw: CataLaw is another law search engine that organizes “all indexes of law and government into a uniform, universal and unique metaindex.”
27. USGenWeb Archives: Help your patrons with genealogy searches with this engine.

Custom Searches

Tailor your search to your daily needs with these search engines, which can be modified by remembering search history, customizing templates and more.

29. mozbot: Pick a language and customize your search with this engine. Mozbot can also add results to your favorites, send results by e-mail, display thumbnails of different sites, and provide suggestions for similar sites.
30. Curriculum Search: Help teachers find reference materials, lesson plans and tools by searching this Google custom search engine.
31. Computer Science Research: Use this search engine or adapt it to make your own to find computer science materials and references.
32. Rollyo: Choose to search categories like health, travel, tech, reference and others using Rollyo, a system that “create[s] search engines using the sources you trust.”
33. Ujiko: This sleekly designed search engine lets you choose how you want your results displayed and organized.

Reference Searches

The following list of search engines prove useful to all kinds of librarians in search of dictionaries and other reference materials.

34. JustCite: JustCite is a legal search engine and can help you find citations.
35. Online Journals Search Engine: Search scientific databases and journals here.
36. Powerset: For a basic Q&A session, use Powerset to quickly search Wikipedia entries.
37. Infoplease: Get information on any subject, from history and government to arts and entertainment to world news to biographical information to homework help.
38. Guide Star: This search tool is great for public librarians or librarians who work with teachers wanting information on grants and nonprofits. Type in the name of an organization or keyword to find nonprofit group information.
39. JoeAnt: You can get answers to research queries on any subject at JoeAnt, from computers to science to politics to the humanities to business law.
40. Find Tutorials: Find tutorials for practically everything on this search site, from education to culture to spirituality, to finance to the Internet.
41. RefDesk: RefDesk is known as the “fact checker for the Internet.” You can search MSN, Google, Yahoo! or Wikipedia, as well as various dictionaries and periodicals.
42. OneLook Dictionary Search: Get detailed definitions, translations and more on this search engine, which pulls from over 1,000 different dictionaries.
43. The Dictionary of Free Online Books and Shopping: Look up and access books online for free using this search engine, which includes educational books, history books, children’s books, biographies, political books and a lot more.
44. Thinkers: Wisdom: This site features a literary search engine called Wisdom that can search the web, images, audio, video, a dictionary and more.
45. Information.com: Use the web search or search encyclopedias, blogs, articles and online groups to get creative with your reference search.

Library Search Engines

Check out these search engines that are designed to emulate or are sponsored by libraries and librarians.

46. Internet Public Library: Find references, search the collections by subject, check out the reading room or KidSpace when you visit this online public library.
47. The Open Library: Here, librarians discover “one web page for every book.” This open source project also features an advanced search, connecting you to the exact book and full-text publication you’re looking for.
48. Awesome Library: Find full-text books, journals, kid-safe sites, business information and more on this online library search engine.
49. LibDex: Search the indexes and other information for 18,000 different libraries here.
50. WorldCat: WorldCat helps patrons and librarians “find items in libraries near you.” Search for books, DVDs, CDs and articles.

How To Make Students Better Online Researchers

A cross-post from edudemic.com

I recently came across an article in Wired Magazine called “Why Kids Can’t Search“.  I’m always interested in this particular topic, because it’s something I struggle with in my middle and high school classes constantly, and I know I’m not alone in my frustrations.
Getting kids to really focus on what exactly they are searching for, and then be able to further distill idea into a few key specific search terms is a skill that we must teach students, and we have to do it over and over again. We never question the vital importance of teaching literacy, but we have to be mindful that there are many kinds of “literacies”. An ever more important one that ALL teachers need to be aware of is digital literacy. I could go off in many directions on this, but for the purpose of this post I’m focusing strictly on the digital literacy of searching.
In the past, we spent a lot of time in schools teaching kids how to do library research, and how to use a variety reference materials like dictionaries, encyclopedias, microfiche, card catalogs, public records, anthologies, and other sources too numerous to recall. Many of these forms of reference are no longer used, as they (or incarnations much like them) are all now available to us on the internet.
However, when we made this switch to internet-based resources, we somehow left a gap in education and made no real focus on teaching kids how to find valid, credible, useful resources online. The result is our frequent frustration with a generation of kids who will still type in the word “Egypt” and grab the first search result that pops up on Google when studying anything remotely related to the topic.
As they get older, kids often employ the tactic of typing a question into the search bar – “How do I find out about mummies in Egypt?” This actually gives Google a little more to work with – namely the word “mummies”, but this additional boost is thwarted because the search is in the form of a question. Top results yield links to Answers.com, YahooAnswers, and other equally useless (academically speaking) results. Anyone – you, me, a 2nd grader, or a Kardashian, can post an answer on these sites. True the internet is becoming more semantic all the time, but we are far from there yet, and these kinds of searches are almost always a waste of time.

The real answer?

SPEND TIME teaching your kids the digital literacy skill of proper searching. It’s never too early for them to learn. Are they old enough to learn to use a dictionary or an encyclopedia? That’s the time! Here are the levels that need to be taught:
1. It begins as a critical thinking and language skill – narrowing their focus to a specific idea, and then selecting the few key terms and some alternatives that will help them.
2. Utilizing the various “search help” tools that many search engines offer – Google offers the ability for kids to narrow the search by time, type (images, news, dictionary, reading level), and also offers a nice advanced search tool. Some simple Boolean tools, such as +, “and”, and – are still extremely useful to know.
3. Critically sorting through the results – is the top result always the best? Often the answer is no. Google sorts its results based on the amount of hits a URL gets and sorts that way. It’s not so much academic as it is a popularity contest. Remember, Google can’t think (yet), so it’s still up to us to make the determination about what will be useful. Taking some time to teach kids about credible resources, scholastic research-based resources, and most importantly valid resources, is a worthwhile and necessary exercise. As an example, my students blog, usually about academic topics they are studying in school. If one of my students posts a movie of their re-enactment of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, their post will likely pop up in any given search about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. Are they a valid scholastic resource? Are they experts? ’nuff said.
4. Sometimes, supply your kids with the internet resources you want them to use. If your focus is on finding the information within a given resource, maybe it’s not necessary to always pile on the extra step of searching for the resource – especially if this is still a skill they struggle with. You can go old school and write the links on the board, or the easier route of pasting or embedding the links into your class webpage. Either way, this practice actually sets a bar for students – they become more accustomed to the type, format, and quality of resource that is valid for academic research. Obviously, they need to learn and use search skills, but this “calibration” every once in awhile is actually a good thing for setting expectations.

Useful Links For Searchers

Here are some links that offer some resources for teachers trying to teach students the digital literacies involved with searching.

• How to Spot a Fake Website
• Great Tech Expectations: What Should Elementary Students be Able to do and When?
• Boolify Project: An Educational Boolean Web Search Tool (very visual)
• Boolean Searching on the Internet
• Rockwell Schrock’s Boolean Machine
• Web Search Strategies in Plain English
• KidRex – a Kid Safe Search Engine

Powerful Search Engines You May Not Know About

Need to get started with a more broad search? These academic search engines are great resources.

1. iSEEK Education:iSeek is an excellent targeted search engine, designed especially for students, teachers, administrators, and caregivers. Find authoritative, intelligent, and time-saving resources in a safe, editor-reviewed environment with iSEEK.
2. RefSeek:With more than 1 billion documents, web pages, books, journals, newspapers, and more, RefSeek offers authoritative resources in just about any subject, without all of the mess of sponsored links and commercial results.
3. Virtual LRC:The Virtual Learning Resources Center has created a custom Google search, featuring only the best of academic information websites. This search is curated by teachers and library professionals around the world to share great resources for academic projects.
4. Academic Index:This scholarly search engine and web directory was created just for college students. The websites in this index are selected by librarians, teachers, and educational consortia. Be sure to check out their research guides for history, health, criminal justice, and more.
5. BUBL LINK:If you love the Dewey Decimal system, this Internet resource catalog is a great resource. Search using your own keywords, or browse subject areas with Dewey subject menus.
6. Digital Library of the Commons Repository:Check out the DLC to find international literature including free and open access full-text articles, papers, and dissertations.
7. OAIster:Search the OAIster database to find millions of digital resources from thousands of contributors, especially open access resources.
8. Internet Public Library:Find resources by subject through the Internet Public Library’s database.
9. Infomine:The Infomine is an incredible tool for finding scholarly Internet resource collections, especially in the sciences.
10. Microsoft Academic Search:Microsoft’s academic search engine offers access to more than 38 million different publications, with features including maps, graphing, trends, and paths that show how authors are connected.
11. Google Correlate:Google’s super cool search tool will allow you to find searches that correlate with real-world data.
12. Wolfram|Alpha:Using expert-level knowledge, this search engine doesn’t just find links; it answers questions, does analysis, and generates reports.

 

Meta Search

Want the best of everything? Use these meta search engines that return results from multiple sites all at once.

13. Dogpile:Find the best of all the major search engines with Dogpile, an engine that returns results from Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, with categories including Web, Images, Video, and even White Pages.
14. MetaCrawler:MetaCrawler makes it easy to “search the search engines,” returning results from Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
15. Mamma:Check out the mother of all search engines to pin down the best resources on the web. Mamma even searches Twitter and job postings!

Books & Journals

Instead of heading to the library to bury your face in the stacks, use these search engines to find out which libraries have the books you need, and maybe even find them available online.

19. WorldCat:Find items from 10,000 libraries worldwide, with books, DVDs, CDs, and articles up for grabs. You can even find your closest library with WorldCat’s tools.
20. Google Books:Supercharge your research by searching this index of the world’s books. You’ll find millions for free and others you can preview to find out if they’re what you’re looking for.
21. Scirus:For scientific information only, Scirus is a comprehensive research tool with more than 460 million scientific items including journal content, courseware, patents, educational websites, and more.
22. HighBeam Research:Research articles and published sources with HighBeam Research’s tools. You’ll not only be able to search for what you’re looking for, you can also choose from featured research topics and articles. Note: HighBeam is a paid service.
23. Vadlo:Vadlo is a life sciences search engine offering protocols, tools, and powerpoints for scientific research and discovery. Find what you’re looking for, and then stick around to check out the forums.
24. Open Library:Find the world’s classic literature, open e-books, and other excellent open and free resources in the Open Library. You can even contribute to the library with information, corrections to the catalog, and curated lists.
25. Online Journals Search Engine:In this free, powerful scientific search engine, you can discover journals, articles, research reports, and books in scientific publications.
26. Google Scholar:Check out Google Scholar to find only scholarly resources on Google. The search specializes in articles, patents, and legal documents, and even has a resource for gathering your citations.
27. Bioline International:Search Bioline International to get connected with a variety of scientific journals. The search is managed by scientists and librarians as a collaborative initiative between Bioline Toronto and and the Reference Center on Environmental Information.
28. SpringerLink:Search through SpringerLink for electronic journals, protocols, and books in just about every subject possible. You can also browse publications by collection and content type.
29. Directory of Open Access Journals:When you need top-quality journal writings for free, the Directory of Open Access Journals is a great place to check out. You’ll get access to a searchable journal of full-text quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.
30. Jurn:In this curated academic search engine, you’ll get results from over 4,000 free scholarly e-journals in the arts and humanities.

Copied from http://edudemic.com/2012/07/best-search-engines/