This is a slightly modified version of Think Like a Librarian for a different school district I'm working with.

1. Think like a librarian Database tips & tricks MILI 2009 LeAnn Suchy, Metronet leann@metronet.lib.mn.us http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabi_k/3546466770/

2. Visible versus Invisible Web “Visible Web” (often called “Surface Web”) Stuff you find via search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. “Invisible Web” (often called “Hidden Web” or “Deep Web”) Things not searchable by regular search engines Subscription databases

3. Visible Web Last year Google indexed its trillionth webpage (1 trillion unique URLs) Google has indexed about half of the Visible Web Results are relevancy ranked Over 200 factors determine relevancy Popularity is a large factor Hits a page gets is another factor

4. Invisible Web Invisible Web is anywhere from 100 to 500 times bigger than the Visible Web (or even bigger?) Search engines like Google can’t index the Invisible Web because: Items found via a query Passwords

5. Invisible Web is important Search engine relevancy rankings for Visible Web sometimes aren’t all that relevant Some tools to help navigate Visible Web to find better resources: Librarians Internet Index: http://lii.org/ Infomine: http://infomine.ucr.edu/ More for higher ed, but might be helpful Invisible Web is way larger than Visible Web and has a lot more credible sources

6. How do I find Invisible Web? Think DATABASES Database through the government, libraries and state of MN Databases through your school Today we’re focusing on: ELM databases (ELM = Electronic Library for MN)

7. ELM - http://www.elm4you.org/

8. Searchasaurus

9. Kids Search

10. InfoTrac Junior Edition

11. InfoTrac Senior Edition

12. ¡Informe!

13. Britannica Online

14. ProQuest Newsstand Complete

15. CAMIO

16. Many more Almost50 ELM databases More databases available through your school, so talk to your media specialist And now, think like a librarian…

17. Before recommending, explore Ask these questions of the database: What type of content is provided? How many publications are included? Years? How frequently is it updated? What navigational tools are provided? Are there tutorials? A help section? Search tips? How are search results displayed? Can I save, email or print articles? RSS feeds? Which students would best be served by this? These questions and more are on Database Exploration Checklist

18. Before recommending, explore

19. Detailed Search

20. Search like a librarian

21. Search results

22. Subject versus Keyword

23. Limiting to type of file

24. Individual record

25. Between now and our meeting Check out the information under Month 3 in the wiki, including the Database Exploration Checklist worksheet Go into the ELM databases (or databases linked from your school library) and use the worksheet to analyze a couple databases Blog about your experiences using the databases When we meet in-person: Be ready to tell us about databases you think might be helpful for you and/or your students