Describes the field search capabilities of selected Web search engines (AltaVista, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo!) and includes a chart outlining what fields (date, title, URL, images, audio, video, links, page depth) are searchable, where to go on the page to search them, the syntax required (if any), and how field search queries are entered.…

Describes a study of four major Web search engines that tested for staleness, a condition when a significant number of the hits it returns point to Web pages or server-level domains (SLD) that are no longer viable. Results of tests of URLs with AltaVista, HotBot, InfoSeek, and Open Text are discussed. (Author/LRW)

This guide profiles the best of the Internet's "scout sites"--Web sites that provide access to the most important online sources of information on specific subjects. Scout sites act as Web directories, offering researchers an alternative to search engines by providing organized collections of links to the most appropriate and useful Web…

Internet error messages can be attributed to three types of problems: server problems, connection problems, or user errors. Examines the causes and remedies for common error messages. (PEN)

Explains search engines that are used on the World Wide Web to find information on the Internet. Highlights include eight search engines with information on how to find the help screen; four "spiders" that conduct searches of several search engines; and four online sites for learning more about using search engines. (LRW)

Discusses methods of searching the World Wide Web and describes 10 Web sites for "panoramic" searching, 13 for "omnibus" searching, 4 for link-following packages, 4 for content delivery services, 1 for directed searching, and off-line Internet searching on Yellow Pages for the Web. (LRW)

Defines natural language processing (NLP); describes the use of NLP in information retrieval (IR); provides seven levels of linguistic analysis: phonological, morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, discourse, and pragmatic. Discusses the commercial use of NLP in IR with the example of DR-LINK (Document Retrieval using LINguistic Knowledge)…

Discusses Alta Vista, one of the most heavily used search engines on the World Wide Web. Describes the following search term manipulations: wildcard and truncation, adjacency, Boolean, and capitalization. Notes problems due to the Internet's constant state of transition and discusses advanced search mode. (AEF)

Examined research strategies and resources used by students to find scarce information. Found that students followed a general strategy that started with an exploratory Web search. (EV)

Discusses the use of bookmarks, or favorite places, and compares procedures for using them on the two main browsers, Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Describes how to organize favorite Web sites using folders, how to share bookmarks between browsers, and checking for Web page updates and link changes. (LRW)

Provides a preliminary report of a multi-phase research study currently in progress about accidental discovery of information (information encountering) on the Web. Presents an introductory overview of the concept of information encountering and its research, explores this concept as it pertains to electronic environments, and summarizes two…

Suggests that the World Wide Web can easily be integrated into the classroom but that students must be taught to use a Web browser and how to use search engines to locate the information they need on the Web. Also provides information on evaluating Web sites. (JOW)

Discusses changing uniform resource locators (URLs), providing an analysis of the frequency of change; solutions available; and reasons for outdated and inaccurate URLs. Lists software and Web services that monitor URLs and hypertext links. (PEN)

Presents a prototype system for image retrieval from the Internet using Web mining. Discusses the architecture of the Web image retrieval prototype; document space modeling; user log mining; and image retrieval experiments to evaluate the proposed system. (AEF)

This article focuses on assessing the level of difficulty of search questions for Web searching, looking at variations in judgments by type of questions and the reasons underlying these judgments. Analyzes the decisions and reasoning of 54 experiences Web searchers on 16 search questions of four types, and includes the questionnaire used.…