Finding Information
Review
See the
Quick Reference for Finding Information on the Internet
for links to the sites mentioned on this page.
General Methods
- Guess the URL for an organization if it is well known.
(Use the pattern http://www.shortname.type)
- Use a specialized list or page appropriate for your topic.
- Use a Search Engine.
- Use a Subject Catalog.
- Use other "information search" pages.
- Ask your friends and colleagues for pointers.
Topic Specific Methods
If your question pertains to:
- Software
- Use a software archive for your machine type, archieplex, or
one of the other archie searching tools. Consult a related
newsgroup and read the Frequently Asked Questions List.
- Geographical Areas or Topics
- Use a geographical list of servers.
- Companies or Products
- Use a list of companies.
- Government Organizations or Government Produced Information
- Use a list of government organizations or documents.
- Non-profit Organizations
- Use a list of non-profit organizations
- Universities or Colleges
- Use a list of post-secondary schools.
- Precollege Schools
- Use a list of K-12 schools "on the Internet".
- Museums or Exhibits
- Use a list of Museums or Science Centers.
- Reference Works
- Use a list of Reference Works.
- Printed Works
- Use a list of online books or magazines.
- Solving Problems or Getting Topic Overviews
- Check the lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs),
For Your Information documents (FYI's), or
Request For Comment documents (RFC's).
- World Wide Web Information
- Use a World Wide Web information list. Use a list for World Wide Web
Developers. Consult the WWW FAQ. Or go to the w3o WWW Consortium
Home Page.
- Very Recent Information
- Use a "What's New" list.
- Topics of Current Disscussion
- Use a list of newsgroups, listservs, or mailing lists.
Use archives if they exist. Subscribe and read postings.
- Topics of Current Discussion (with more time)
- Post a question on the appropriate newsgroup or
mailing list when you have time to wait for an answer.
- Think about the best place to start your search.
- Use both Web and Gopher sources.
- Try the easiest things first.
- Use FIND to go through large pages. (Search results too!)
- Use the form specifically designed for each search tool.
- Look for hints in a URL before selecting it.
- Look for others' pages with lists of related links and save the URL.
- Learn more complicated queries for search engines you use frequently.
- On FTP sites, use the "pub" link if no other choice is obvious.
- When writing resource pages, provide more than one link for each
type of resource.
- Think about the best keyword for your search. Try synonyms.
- Try the "root" or "stem" of the words instead of the full word.
(i.e. Exclude prefixes, suffixes, and plurals.)
- Try the opposite of a keyword.
- Add or remove keywords from your search in order to get fewer
or more results.
- Try more specific or more generalized keywords.
- Try "AND"s of keywords to narrow down your search or an OR of keywords
to broaden your search. Read the help for your searching tool to do this.
- Try other query choices when they are available. (NOT, adjacency, ...)
- Vary whether your search is "case sensitive" based on your needs.
- Check the link for obvious mistakes.
Re-try the URL using OPEN and correcting for the mistakes.
- If the error is something like "permission denied" you may
not have permission to access the given page.
- Try the link again in a few minutes.
- Try the link again the next day or week.
- Try the link again during off hours (evenings and weekends).
- Try alternate locations for the same services (ex: mirror sites,
alternate machines for search engines)
- Try a different service or tool.
- Send e-mail to the maintainer of the site about the bad link.
Laura Mengel (lauram@fnal.gov)
June 15, 1995 - October 18, 1995