When you should browse instead of search
techlife@school
By Joyce Kasman Valenza
Sad Web Case No. 1: Third grader Sarah loves dogs. She searches the Web for information about dogs as pets, hoping to download some cute pictures to decorate her room. She searches the word ``dogs'' in Lycos, finds thousands of hits, and gives up with a sigh.
Sad Web Case No. 2: Ms. Beeker, a chemistry teacher, wants to recommend some relevant Web sites for her students to explore as an extra-credit project. She types the word ``chemistry'' in Excite, runs her eyes over the first ten pages of her hit list, and gives up to return to the textbook.
Sad Web Case No. 3: Seventh grader Ben has to do a report about China. He types the word ``China'' in Webcrawler. With a gazillion hits, he doesn't even know where to start or how to narrow his search. So he gives up, returning to his trusty encyclopedia.
These hapless searchers have made one common mistake: They shouldn't be searching at all; they should be browsing.
Why browse?
Students who sit through my lectures on searching cannot avoid this mantra: ``There are two ways to attack almost any database: You may search it by keyword or by subject.''
This is true of almost any CD-ROM tool, and also true for the Web. Keyword searching is appropriate when you are searching unique terms or if you are combining more than one concept, for instance, ``Tiananmen Square'' and ``student protests in China.'' For keyword searching on the Web, a search engine approach is the way to go.
But when your goal is to find the best sites relating to a general topic, subject browsing is the best approach. Subject directories require nothing more than a knowledge of what you are browsing for. Many times it is much easier to browse through a list of sites selected and organized by humans than to design a search strategy and try to match keywords character by character. Browsing through organized menus works better than searching when you are looking at broad concepts and are not using restrictive search terms.
Say you are an art teacher seeking a few interesting sites to introduce your class to famous painters. Typing the word ``painters'' in a search engine to search the entire Web would be a nightmare. Browsing through a list of sites under the large heading ``art'' and then scanning under the subtopic ``artists'' or ``painters'' would be far more efficient, especially if the legwork and evaluation has already been done by an expert in the field.
Because the databases in subject directories tend to be smaller than those in search engines, your result list will be smaller as well. Because human judgment is involved, users are less likely to retrieve out-of-context results, and your results are likely to be more relevant. But what kind of crazy humans are equal to the task of organizing those millions of sites? Incredibly, there are some folks in this world who prefer order to chaos. We must thank those order nuts, many of whom are librarians, for their herculean efforts to tame the Web for those of us who are just browsing.
Joseph Janes saw the problem early; the Internet is a mess. Two years ago, he invented the Internet Public Library (IPL) while teaching a graduate class in information science. Offhandedly, he suggested to his graduate students, ``Let's build a library on the Web.'' His students met the challenge and began to design IPL, the very first library on the Web, ``from the ground up.''
They set up a reference area, a children's department, even an information desk for questions. And they established subject departments, which are really at the heart of what a library does. Their screen simulates that comfortable, familiar library environment. ``Organization is more important in this environment than in print,'' according to Janes. The IPL project is supported by the University of Michigan and grants from the W.K. Kellogg and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations. The Mellon grant is designed to explore ways of making the work economically self-sustainable.
For the more academic. The IPL is not the only library in this virtual town. The mother of all subject directories is the Argus Clearinghouse. Because it is hard to keep up with the changes in specific subject areas and general subject guides may not get deep enough to be of use to serious researchers and professionals, Argus stepped in.
There you will find excellent, carefully evaluated subject guides developed by experts and scholars and related to specific interests. The folks at Argus understand the value of the human element in Web searching.
For popular information. An excellent new site aimed at a less scholarly audience is Reader's Digest's Web directory, LookSmart. LookSmart's directory resembles a magazine. Click on a main menu item, and a subheading menu pops open. The site includes a wide variety of subject catagories, as well as an area called K-12 Education, under which there are resources for students and teachers.
And for teachers. Though there are many excellent subject directories developed by K-12 educators, my favorite tour guide is Kathy Schrock (who just happens to be a librarian). Schrock's Guide for Educators is my default screen at home and a must bookmark for all connected teachers. She has a fabulous list of curriculum links. There are also search tips and slide shows to use in teacher in-services.
Joyce Kasman Valenza is the librarian at Springfield High in Erdenheim and writes frequently about technology and education. Her column appears each week in tech.life.
For a list of subject directories http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/searchtips.html
Google Directory, Librarian's Index to the Internet, LibrarySpot, About.com/Mining Company , Yahoo,
CyberDewey, Digital Librarian, Academic Information, Argus Clearinghouse, Awesome Library,
Best Information on the Internet , Eye On the Web, Galaxy, HotSheet, Infomine ,
Internet Public Library, Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, KidsClick!,
Ultimate Hotlist, Virtual LRC, Yahooligans, SearchLight, Snap!, Ringworld: The Webring Directory
Back to Neverending Search