INFORMATION

SEEKING
SKILLS
Muhammad Asif
Naveed
Library Officer
Learning Resource Center
University of Management & Technology
PhD Scholar, MPhil, MLIS, PU, Lahore.
asif.naveed@umt.edu.pk Ext.: 3329

SCHEMA

Searching tools - Types

Web searching techniques
Searching
Developing a search strategy
Hand on practice Google, Google
Scholar, HEC Databases
Evaluating search results

TYPES OF SEARCH TOOLS

General Google. Bing, Yahoo etc.

Scholarly Google Scholar, ISI web of Knowledge, etc
Subject Directories Google, Yahoo, etc
Meta Search tools Dogpile, Info.com, Browsys, etc
Online databases Jstore, SpringerLink, Wiley, etc.
Library web OPACs UMT, LUMS, LOC, WordCate
Thesis & Dissertations DAI, PRR, BL Ethos.
Summons - A librarys search engine

Summon - University of Huddersfield

abcd

SPECIALIZED TOOLS

Pub Med
Agris
Lexes Nexus
IEEE
Psyc Info
Psyc Articles
Psyc Books

META SEARCH ENGINE

A web application / software

Searches multiple search engines simultaneously in a single interface

Does not keep any physical database, it simply searches others

databases, combines the results, removes duplicates and displays them

Underlying philosophy:
It is assumed that the web is too large to be indexed by any of the search
engines individually and more comprehensive search results can be obtained by
combining the results from several search engines.
When to use a meta search engine?

When your topic is obscure

When you are not having luck finding what you want

When you want the convenience of searching a variety of different content

sources from one search page

ARCHITECTURE OF A METASEARCH ENGINE

META SEARCH ENGINES

SOME EXAMPLES

http://www.info.com,
Searches Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and
About Simultaneously
http://www.browsys.com/
Searches Google, Yahoo, Bing, Blogs,
Youtube, Mashpedia, Twitter, Ask etc.
simultaneously
http://www.dogpile.com,
Searches Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask
Simultaneously

ELECTRONIC THESES AND DISSERTATIONS

Dissertation Abstract International

Networked Digital Library of Theses and

Dissertations

250,000+ theses of British universities

Many are free

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database

Catalog of theses and doctoral dissertations

contributed by some 176 universities and 27
institutions worldwide

British Library EThOS

Collection of PhD dissertations of all accredited

institutions in North America.

Worlds most comprehensive collection of

dissertations and theses with over 2.7 million entries

Pakistan Research Repository

Digital archive of all PhD Desertions produced by

Pakistani higher education institutions.

SUMMONS

A digital front door to librarys

resources
It is built around a
single, unified index that returns a
single, unified set of results
Allowing users to effectively search
and navigate across almost all of the
librarys resources in a manner that
meets users expectations for what a
modern search should be.

ONLINE SEARCHING TECHNIQUES

Boolean Operators
Phrase Searching
Truncation / Wildcard Searching
Proximity Searching
Focusing / Limiting a Search

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BOOLEAN OPERATORS
Boolean operators allow you to join terms together,
widen a search or exclude terms from your search
results. This means you can be more precise in locating
your information.

AND
OR
NOT
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PHRASE SEARCHING
It narrows your search down by
searching for an exact phrase or
sentence. It is particularly useful when
searching for a title or a quotation.
Usually quotation marks are used to
connect the words together.
For example
Towards a healthier Lahore
(Towards ICTs Boom)
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TRUNCATION /
WILDCARD
These search techniques retrieve information on
similar words by replacing part of the word with a
symbol usually a * or ?. However, different
databases use different symbols, so check what is
used.
In truncation the end of the word is replaced.

For example physiother* will retrieve physiotherapy,

physiotherapeutic, physiotherapist and so on.

In wildcard searching, letters from inside the word

are replaced.

For example wom*n will retrieve the terms woman and

women.

Usually used symbols [*, #, ?,~]

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PROXIMITY SEARCHING
It looks for documents where two or
more separately matching term
occurrences are within a specified
distance, where distance is the number
of intermediate words or characters
[Near or adjacent]
For example

Term A NEAR Term B

Term A ADJ Term B
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FOCUSING / LIMITING A SEARCH

There are many ways to focus your search and all
search tools offer different ways of doing this. Some
of the ways of limiting your search are as follows:

Date
Language
Place
Publication type
Age groups
Type of material e.g. you could just need to find
case studies
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START SEARCHING (1)

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START SEARCHING (2)

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DEVELOPING A SEARCH STRATEGY

Write

a clear topic statement

Determine the nature and extent to which information is
needed
Select the key words from your topic statement.
Based on the keywords you identified above, select
synonyms, related terms, and alternate forms for each of
these keywords
Formulate a search strategy using Boolean operators
Select appropriate search tools
Search
Review results and revise search

EVALUATING RESULTS

When? Check currency, when was it

produced?
Who? Who is responsible for the
information?
Why? Has it been published on the
internet?
Where? Where is the page situated?
What? What value is of to you?

4/5/15

POSSIBLE ACCESS SOURCES

Subscribed databases
Google
Authors websites, profiles etc.
Inter Library Loan
Authors email ID Ask personally

HANDS ON PRACTICE

Google
Google scholar
Jstore
Springer Link
Taylor and Francis
Doaj

THANK
YOU

Welcome for questions,

suggestions, and
comments.
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