Search Tools

Hi everyone welcome to week 5. Moving right along to search tools. Search tools are a very important part of reseach which need to be taught and redefined at an early age. When being taught how to use these devices teachers and librarians should be very clear in making sure that their target audience are aware of the many possiblities provided for them. It is also very important to make it very clear that your sources be reliable and that is why I prefer databases to search engines although I do realize that they are not always avaialble, If I had to choose my favorite search engine I would probably choose Google for its wide variety of capabilities. I am not as fond of Bing and Yahoo. As for databases I prefer Infotrac to Proquest for Highschools and Public Libraries. For elementary students I prefer Searchasaurus and Worldbook Kids. Teachers also need training in these databases in oder to be able to serve their students better. In the last few weeks I been observing in school libraries and have found that many different schools have different views on the subject of searching. Smallwood elementary prefers to teach Google for searching whereas Herbert Hoover Elementary prefers Database searching. Amherst Highschool looks very fondly on databases as well such as Infotrac. I know when I have my own library I will make sure that I make as many possibilities available as I physically can.