Internet for Health Professionals

Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library, University of Manitoba Libraries, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Internet for Health
Professionals

Introduction

Why connect
to the Internet?

What is on the
Internet?

Evaluating Web Resources

Finding what
you want

Encyclopedic Sites

Pathfinder Sites

Search
engines

Subject
Catalogues

Evaluated
Subject
Catalogues

Interactive
Learning

Discussion Lists
and
Newsgroups

Search Engines

Search Engine Resources
Search Engines (selected list)
Multiple Search Engines
Desktop Multi-Search Engines

Free-Text Searching

Strengths of free-text searching

  • You can undertake a very specific search and find documents that precisely match your requirements.
  • The comprehensive indexing of the retrieved resources means that very few searches fail; no matter how obscure your search, there is bound to be a reference to it somewhere on the Internet.
  • The databases are easy to search.

Weaknesses of free-text searching

  • This inevitably produces a number of irrelevant results.
  • The databases cannot be browsed.
  • The resources added to these databases are not evaluated in any way.  The good and the bad resources are retrieved.
  • No one search engine is all encompassing.  If you can't find something with one search engine, try another.

Top

Search Engine Resources

The following sites evaluate and summarize the indexing coverage, features, differences and limitations of the various search engines.

Choose the Best Search Engine
http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~debbie/library/research/adviceengine.html

Glossary of Search Engine Terms
http://www.cadenza.org/search_engine_terms/

Search Engine Showdown
http://www.notess.com

Search Engine Watch
http://www.searchenginewatch.com

Top

Search Engines(A selected list)

AltaVista
http://www.altavista.digital.com

Excite
http://www.excite.com

Google
http://www.google.com

HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com

Infoseek
http://www.infoseek.com

Lycos
http://www.lycos.com

Medinex
http://www.medinex.com/

Northern Light
http://www.nlsearch.com/

Top

Multiple Search Engines

Multiple search engines query several other Web search engine databases in parallel. Of the many online multiple search engines, several of the best known are listed below. See also desktop client solutions further down on this page.

Note the Problems with using multiple search engines before relying on their results (see: http://www.notess.com/search/multi/#metac)

All4One
http://www.all4one.com/

Cyber 411
http://www.cyber411.com/main.htm

Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com/

MetaFind
http://www.metafind.com/

MetaCrawler
http://www.go2net.com/search.html

Top

Desktop Multi-Search Engines

The following desktop client programs function as multiple search engines, but rather than being online like the ones above, they are programs run off a desktop machine.

Express by Infoseek (free)
http://express.infoseek.com/

Copernic (free)
http://www.copernic.com/

WebFerret (fee)
http://www.ferretsoft.com/netferret/index.html

WebSeeker (fee)
http://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/seeker/webseeker.html

Top




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Send comments to Bill Poluha.
Bill_Poluha@umanitoba.ca
Content last updated: June 20, 1999
© 1997 Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library, University of Manitoba