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Perennial Searcher

May 3, 2008

Top 100 Tools For Learning

Here's an excellent roundup of essential Web apps: Top 100 Tools for Learning. Here you'll find software to help you with the following: blogs, wikis, social networking, email, Web browsers, email, social bookmarking, customized home pages, full-fledged office suites, and much more.

Caveat emptor: Some of the tools are gratis; others require dough.

Posted by brian at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 1, 2008

Grokker

Do you Grok? If you use Ebsco products/database you might . . . that is, if you use the "visual search" feature. According to the company . . .

"Grokker’s name is inspired by the 1961 Robert A. Heinlein science fiction classic 'Stranger in a Strange Land,' in which Grok is a Martian word meaning to understand something completely.

It's possible to test drive Grokker. Searchers can crawl all 1 or 3 options: Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and Amazon.com.

What's unique about this resources is its hits/results display. Results are displayed in an "outline" view (think clusters, categories, classification). In addition, Grokker features a visual/map display of results.

Be forewarned that this tool runs Java!

Posted by brian at 6:02 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

IRN: May 2008

The May 2008 issue of Internet Resources Newsletter is now available. What the BBC is to the news, IRN is to the Web. Be sure to comb through the A-Z New & Notable Websites. Profiled this month is AllPsych, an excellent portal on human behavior. You'll find a psychology dictionary, online texts, selected journal articles, and more.

Posted by brian at 3:34 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2008

80% of Web Searches = Informational

The findings of a Penn State study reveal that 80% of Internet searches are "informational". What, exactly, does that word mean in context? Answer:

"Informational searching involves looking for a specific fact or topic, navigational searching seeks to locate a specific Web site and transactional searching looks for information related to buying a particular product or service."

Posted by brian at 9:12 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2008

Wikipedia Reaches Milestone

According to CNET, Wikipedia now contains 10 million articles. The user-generated encyclopedia is no doubt controversial among, teachers, librarians, information professionals, etc. Recently, though, I heard of a good way to frame or, rather, reframe the Wikipedia debate: Use Wikipedia as a means to an end and not an end in itself. In other words, it's okay to start with Wikipedia. Just don't stop there. Also as Joe Janes, professor @ iSchool, recently pointed out (not a direct quote, but a paraphrase): "If you don't like Wikipedia, fix it!".

Posted by brian at 6:07 PM | Comments (0)

April 7, 2008

Acronym Finder Reaches a Milestone

Today Acronym Finder adds its 600,000th entry to its database. This venerable and trusted source has been in existence for a decade.

Reminder:

"Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms."

Posted by brian at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)

April 4, 2008

National Poetry Month

Since 1996, April has been the month of rhyme and verse: National Poetry Month. Infoplease.com has collected some helpful resources here. You'll find poetry collections, biographies, quizzes, and more. See also the official site for the Academy of American Poets.

. . . from poets.org:

"National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events."

Posted by brian at 9:20 AM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2008

Northern Light Returns

Back in the mid-'90s, Northern Light was one of the most well-respected search engines, especially for business content. The company soon changed directions, opting for a fee-based model. Now - - as of April 2008 - - the company redirects itself once again. According to Information Today, Northern Light is gearing up to launch yet another free search tool. It's called Northern Light Search Beta, and it will crawl business news, industry authority blogs, white papers, and more. In addition, it appears that it will be a 2.0 tool, replete with widgets and tag clouds.

Posted by brian at 9:10 AM | Comments (1)

March 19, 2008

Google For Non-Profits

Google's motto and mantra = "Don't Be Evil". Showing its philanthropic side, Google unveils Google for Non-Profits. The only unique content on this skin - - from my perspective is Google Grants. It's probably worth it to click through this presentation if you're serious about learning more.

Posted by brian at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2008

The Battle for Wikipedia's Soul

Interesting piece from The Economist about the conflicting editorial philosophies behind a user-generated encyclopedia. To include or exclude? That is the question. There's also mention of Google's knoll project (here's a screenshot of it) and how it uses social ranking and popularity to push articles/entries to the forefront. Kind of like Digg for encyclopedias?

Posted by brian at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)