Computer Helpers from Boreham Library

Tips, Hints and Links for University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Students, Faculty and Staff

Searching

[this page last updated 2008/5/5]


Searching

Searching for what you want isn’t always easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard. There are a number of methods, sites and software programs that can make it easier and faster.

For information on searching for books and other library materials, click here.

Windows & Web Page Searching

The easiest way to search for something specific in Windows or on a web page is to use CTRL-F (capital or lower-case “f”) for “Find.” A popup will let you fill in the specific word or phrase you want, and search the file or web page you have open.

Windows has a Search function in the Start menu popup. There are also a number of other ways to search inside files (usually found in the “Edit” menu, if the program has one).

Internet and Web Site Searching

Search engines are used to search the Internet and the World Wide Web. For a list of specialized and general search engines, click here.

For the latest posts on this topic, click here.

Categories


General Search Engines

A meta-search engine searches using several other search engines.


Advice and How-To

  • About.com explains all kinds of things.
  • Ask Experts.com ask any question & get a self-styled “expert” to answer - which could be worth just what you pay. Use at your own risk.
  • learn2.com online resource for how to do all sorts of stuff (some free, some pay)
  • LibrarySpot simulates the many resources of a library
  • LookSmart has information on many subjects

Art, Graphics & Photos

  • AltaVista Photo Finder This is currently the most comprehensive database of images on the ‘net, with the best searching capability. AltaVista has combined the Corbis photo database with indexed images from the Web to provide millions of images. Although it calls itself a “Photo Finder,” there are images of all types. The default setting is to filter, one click turns it off. A search returns up to 12 thumbnails at a time.
  • Arriba Vista annotated graphics catalog from the Mining Company
  • Image Providers Directory
  • ImageSurferCategory List
  • Microsoft Clip Art Gallery
  • Proteus Image Search meta-search AltaVista, Lycos, Yahoo, WebSEEk, Arthur, others, but only one at a time
  • WebSeek A Content-Based Image and Video Search and Catalog Tool for the Web

Books, Videos, Web Sites, more

Use WorldCat to search for what you want in the nearest libraries.
Searches public, academic (college & university), and many school and special libraries.
  • Nearby Libraries this Library’s own page of links to libraries within 50 miles of Fort Smith.

Business & Finance

Buying & Consumer Information


Converters & Measurements

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

  • Acronym Finder
  • Britannica Ency.Britannica online with additional content, EBSCO databases links, more
  • Concise Columbia Encyclopedia
  • Free Internet Encyclopedia This is an encyclopedia composed of information available on the Internet. There are two main divisions. The MacroReference contains references to large areas of knowledge, FAQs where available, and pointers to relevant areas of the MicroReference. The MicroReference contains short
    bits of information and references to specific subjects, sometimes with instructions on finding the specific subject inside a general reference. Each specific subject will reference its general subject in the MacroReference if one is present. ; To expand by saying the same thing slightly differently, the MicroReference is an alphabetically arranged set of links to information while the MacroReference is a thematic arrangement with an index.
  • InfoPlease Almanac
  • On-Line Dictionaries The ultimate Internet directory of dictionaries, more than 800 dictionaries of over 150 different languages. Graphically pleasing, easily navigable, with the following sections: Languages (dozens), Multilingual, Specialized, Thesauri and other Vocabulary Aids; and an index of other Dictionary indexes. Maintained by a Russian/Linguistics professor.
  • OneLook Dictionaries searches multiple dictionaries in one pass. The ultimate Internet dictionary lookup site. Search more than 500 general and specialized English dictionaries simultaneously, or select the ones you want to search. More than 2 million words now indexed.
  • Whatis.com Hyper-linked definitions of more than 1,000 Internet and computer related terms. All can be browsed or searched. Includes special sections on How the Internet Works; Writing HTML; Software; and Hardware.
  • Wikipedia the controversial experiment in letting everyone contribute to it, with varying degrees of quality and bias, still has some useful information not often found in conventional publications
  • Wordsmyth English Dictionary Thesaurus (WEDT) This is an original
    standard dictionary-thesaurus of American English with definitions and pronunciations, an integrated thesaurus, and useage examples. A nice feature is the Approximate Search, which will find words that are close in spelling to your word. “It was developed from modern/contemporary sources, on the basis of our own editorial manual. The database has approximately 50,000 headwords, and nearly 13,000 of these have thesaurus (SYN/SIM) entries.”
  • World Wide Words There are two main sections at this fascinating site: Articles about the English language, ranging from the vocabulary of lotteries and words for irrational feelings to the slang terms for money and an excellent discussion on what big numbers mean in different countries, and The Word Hoard, words and phrases which have not yet reached most dictionaries. Check out andropause, ebonics, and presenteeism. The author (who is British and contributes to the OED) tries for American, as well as British explanations.
  • WWWebster Dictionary Based on the Merriam-Webster 10th Collegiate edition, 1993. More than 160,000 entries. Each word is accompanied by definition, pronunciation, usage, grammatical function, and a brief
    etymology. A thesaurus can be queried for similar words, hypertext cross references are available,and return suggested spellings. Search system supports internal wildcards and right hand truncation searching. Includes an extensive pronunciation guide.

Directories & Biography

  • AnyWho This sleek little site powered by AT&T Labs searches for home and biz phones, 1-800 numbers, email addresses, Web sites and has a reverse telephone search.
  • Biography.com A&E Network has crippled limited interface to good bios
  • Congressional Staff Directory
  • Congressional email directory from Webslingerz
  • Literary Market Place Online
  • People Search Search a raft of search engines at once, either by the person’s name or by address, phone number or email address — and all for free. There’s also an international search option.
  • PubList periodical directory
  • SwitchBoard Search for people, businesses, Web sites, maps and more. With the What’s Nearby feature, you plug in address and WhoWhere returns all the restaurants, stores, parks, etcetera in the area. Also reverse searches from phone number or location.
  • Telephone Directories on the Web
  • Who’s Alive and Who’s Dead A “site that helps you keep track of which famous people have died and which are still alive!” If they’re one of the more than 1,700 people listed, you can find out if they are still with us and, if not, when and why they went. Grouped according to the accomplishments for which they are best known, alphabetically, and searchable. Information includes full name, what the person is known for, and reason for death, if known. Maintained by a person with a day job as Director of Technology at an architectural firm.
  • WhoWhere A good little phone, email and site finder. Plus it also has a few cool specialty searches, including a genealogy search, public records search and celebrity search.
  • Yahoo People Search One of the best email searches available. It’s advanced option lets you make searches based on domain name, organization tag or even old email addresses.

Education

  • AskERIC education info for teachers, librarians, students, educators, more

Government, Law & Politics

  • American FactFinder get census info; can customize using JavaScript software
  • Business.gov small business grants & loans, business laws, how to start a business, buying surplus property for business
  • Fedworld (US Dept.Commerce) government databases, info, sites
  • FirstGov.gov This site is “the World Wide Web information portal for the United States Federal Government.” It serves as the “first resource to find any government information on the Internet, with topics ranging from business and economy to money and benefits to science and technology.” Users can search for information using the search engine or browse by the branch of the government; by Interesting Topics; or by Featured Subjects which highlight interesting and timely information. There are links to state and local government information. There are also links to providing online or offline feedback to the government by topics or by agencies.
  • Government Information Locator Service
  • U.S. Gazetteer search by counties, place names, MCDs (Minor Civil Divisions), zip codes to find over 100 demographic measures for an area

Maps, Geography & Travel


Music & Video

  • All-Music Guide a source of music information from band biographies to album reviews to track listings. Searchable by artist, album, song, style of music, and label. Also has a music dictionary.
  • Archive of Misheard Lyrics misheard lyrics to pop songs
  • AudioRaider is a “Google-powered MP3 search engine that lets you find and download MP3s. All AudioRaider search results are pulled out directly from Google Index. Once you find what you’re looking for you can save it to your system using “right click” and “save target as” option.”
  • Digital Tradition lyrics & a few sound files to mostly folk songs, etc. download latest database
  • Gracenote search by artist, album and song for listings
  • Internet Movie DataBase
  • Irish Folk Song Lyrics archive
  • LyricFerret is a search engine to find the lyrics to that song that you can’t quite remember.
  • Lyrics HQ all kinds of songs
  • Lyrics Ring ring of web sites with lyrics
  • Movie Web
  • MP3.com locate MP3 music on the web
  • MusicSearch:TheInternet’s Music-Only Search Site
  • SeeqPod is a playable search engine for music, especially music videos. Many of these come from YouTube, but it goes further in searching for music and videos.
  • SkreemeR is a search engine for DRM-free MP3 files of music, podcasts, speeches and much more
  • SongFile music/lyrics/purchase info for songs, etc. - over 2 million titles
  • University of California @ Berkeley Online Audio Recordings Not just sound bites! The University of California at Berkeley has made available dozens of hours of sound file records at various lectures and events at UCB. With either RealAudio or StreamWorks, you can listen to speeches and lectures by Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Carlos Fuentes, Aldous Huxley, Alfred L. Kroeber, Claude Lvi-Strauss, Margaret Mead, and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer; and poetry readings from Robert Creeley, Robert Frost, Czeslaw Milosz, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, Gary Snyder, and Ted Joans.
  • WebSeek A Content-Based Image and Video Search and Catalog Tool for the Web
  • WonderHowTo searches for how-to videos, aggregates videos from more than 500 specialized websites and categorizes them into categories. Search videos, browse by category, comment on, rate, submit etc.
  • Woonz is an anonymous music search engine that lets you find and stream (or download) MP3s online. It’s similar to Franceradio, Skreemr, AudioRaider and AirMP3, however Woonz claims not to log any IPs and keep all user activity anonymous.

Phone Searching

  • Boopsie lets you select from over 100 channels in total. Search match scores, lookup stock prices, local weather reports, find phone numbers, search Wikipedia, find nearest Starbucks or FedEx store, movie reviews (via IMDB.com), area code lookup, search Amazon books, read global news and lots more. If you can browse web on your phone, you can most likely use Boopsie. Works with pretty much all popular phones (BREW, Blackberry, Java (J2ME), Palm OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone).

Quotations


Other Resources

  • Everyrule Find rules from etiquette to sports to game shows. Includes various categories of games: computer, casino, kids, board, cards. Each group is searchable, or browse them in alphabetical order. Some links take you to the
    manufacturer’s site and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view, but they also provide information about the game such as product recalls, replacement parts, and history of the company. Sports links often take you to the rules
    portion of the official site, such as the NFL’s Digest of Rules. A weekly newsletter, Rules Making News, notes, controversial new policies and rule modifications primarily in sports.
  • Repositories of Primary Sources This site contains links to “over 3,400 Web sites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar.” Access is by region or by an alphabetical index of state, province, or country. “The list focuses on actual repositories; therefore virtual collections are excluded.” There is also a list of other’s lists of archives and repositories.

One Response to “Searching”

  1. C. Barreiro Says:
    May 5, 2008 at 10:46 am

    Hi,
    Could you add this site to your page?:

    Babieca Search

    Thanks.

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