Kinds of Search Engines

• Hierarchical: links organized by categories; Good for categories covered; poor in other areas.   BUBL has selected internet resources covering all academic subject areas; inside of physical sciences seems to like astronomy/astrophysiscs topics. Yahoo (not for science topics). Alpha Search hunts for best internet gateway for specific discipline. Doesn't currently support phrase searching. Infomine, scholarly internet resource collections; sends you to other tools when it fails.
• Standard: robots seach out and index pages; engine use algorithm to rank pages displayed. See Best search engines for some of the best: Altavista, Hotbot and Northern Lights; the latter organizes results into folders which may be helpful. Others include Excite and Go Network.
   
  
• Alternative: Ask Jeeves answers questions other searchers have asked. Snap, formerly a top engine has faided. Oingo queries you to make sure it understands your search.

  Syntax: "  ", +, -

  Power Search Search Tips

  Powered by

  Syntax: + ["OR" assumed]

• Meta: searches other engines in hope that more is better; downside is that it uses lowest common denominator, altho Dogpile included in Best search engines has some boolean search capabilities. Other meta engines include: Metacrawler and Debriefing.
   
  
• Databases: Here are two links: one specifically organized by science topic and another to general databases; see OSU library links to full text databases and resources in physics and astronomy The BigHub identifies and sorts free databases. NewsMaps displays searches thematically.
   
  
• Ask "friends." The most recent attempt is (www.abuzz.com; summer 2000).