Searching: Google and Beyond

I have to admit that I tend to use Google as my main search engine. After that, I will try Yahoo! or even altavista. Sometimes it depends on the kind of search I need to do as to whether I choose another search engine.

Blindsearch is interesting. Many of the same results came up in each search.
The first search I did came up with very similar results. The one I choose for the best answers was marginally Yahoo! with Google as my second choice. The second search for Crosby, Texas came up with Google (1st) and Yahoo!(2nd) having the first several results the same. Bing had many of the same results in a slightly different order. My third search also has come up with most of the same sites, just in different orders. I tried a slightly different search and the one I chose this time was Bing.

The #1 search engine on Hitwise was Google, not a big surprise, second and far back was Yahoo! It's interesting that the overall search terms are for many of the social networking sites. browsing through their search statistics is interesting.

Google lets you search images, videos, maps, pulls news from a number of different sources and lets you search news sources, and shopping. Google also has a Documents site that lets you type, share, update and access documents from anywhere. There is an advanced search that lets you use phrases, not use words, search by language, file type or to search within a site. You can also change your preferences for the number of results to display, language to search and some other options. They also have search engines for a number different counties and you can see how things search from a different country.

Yahoo! has a number of links from their main site to games, Facebook, movies and things that link to news stories, other sites and news stories. There is a lot of information and links on their main page. You can search for images, videos, local businesses, shopping and other things. I couldn't find an advanced search option or a preferences page. It does have a place where you can take notes and if you go to a site, it makes a note of it on the page.

Bing is a bit different. I'm not sure that I would use it that much. One thing it does do is break the search results into different subject headings. There are also ways to narrow your results on the left side of the page. There are also all the standard searches. Under the shopping there is a Cashback reward system for shopping through their websites. There is also a preferences page that lets you select settings. One kind of fun thing, the pictures on their home page have boxes that link to other images or information about the picture.

Books, Readers and Beyond: What to Read

I'm putting this at the top of this entry so that it might be seen. Everyone doesn't read to the bottom of an entry. My favorite website for series, further reading and other authors hasn't even been mentioned. The Fantastic Fiction website can be searched by author or title, or browsed. It lists all series by an author, the author's website, suggestion/recommendations by the author, other authors to read, forthcoming books. You can also browse by most popular, New books, Coming Soon, top authors, series, etc. It's a wonderful site.

The suggestions in the interview are what I already ask. Depending on their answer, I may refer them to a coworker who reads in their genre or author for other suggestions.

Looking at the suggested lists, I'm not over impressed with Library Booklists. The lists are too long and difficult to use. Some of the breakdowns are good, so it might be helpful if you have time to look for your subject. The children's fiction and the YA lists look good.

I tried a couple of authors I like and What Should I Read Next? came up with some good suggestions on one and not so good on the other. The Fiction_L Booklist didn't have one author in their list, but the suggestions for the other were good. To me, the Library Booklists makes you work too hard to get to a suggestion list. It might work better if you had a lot of time or possibly if you wanted to do some displays or bibliographies of your own. Surprisingly NoveList Plus only found 1 suggestion for one author, but did better on the other author. I'm choosing Iris Johansen's Firestorm as a suggestion.

The Morton Grove Public Library's Webrary Fiction_L Booklist has some fun genres, characters and settings. Trying to narrow it down to the correct list might be challenging, but fun.
I like the What Should I Read Next? site. Most of the suggestions seem to apply, but some are off the wall. Even those might provide an interesting new author.

Now I was working on the children's request. First looking for horse stories for the girl NoveList Plus did a good job. Two I found are Stealing Thunder and Paint the Wind. Morton Grove Public Library's Kids' Webrary has a very good Kids's Booklists by subject good bibliography and lots of lists for kids. I see one for the brother as well. Stealing Thunder was on that list also, along with Snow Pony. What Should I Read Next? doesn't work for this kind of RA, unless they already have a title. And trying one come up with mostly adult titles. Library Booklists found some bibliographies. There is a link to Deschutes Public Library - Saddle Up 'N Read which has stories on several levels, again including Stealing Thunder.

For the ghost stories, NoveList Plus has problems finding more than 2 books. I was doing an advanced seach with book, fiction, grade 7 or 8 and older kids seaching for ghost, ghosts with a subject or no subject. Now if I take the grade level out, it does find a lot of titles, but many are the wrong age, even leaving in older kids. Choosing teens did a little better. It found Breathe: A Ghost Story and Ghost in the Tokaido Inn, that are about boys and ghosts. The problem with some of the book lists, are they are not updated, so it's hard to find new titles. The Morton Grove Public Library's Teenreads has a search engine that is OK. It found A Gathering of Shades and Restless: A Ghost's Story.

Now for the Dean Koontz question.

NoveList Plus gives me Greg Bear, John Saul and Charles Grant.

Morton Grove didn't have a list for Koontz, but they do have a Horror Picks with some good suggestions; John Saul, Joe Lansdale, Stephen King.

What Should I Read Next? gave me Iris Johansen, Stephen White, Simon Green. To have something for later posts, I will list Firestorm by Johansen.

I went to Mid-Contenent Public Library for their Juvenile Series and Sequels page and looked up Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. It found the name of the series and other titles.

Song of the Lioness series.
1 Alanna: The First Adventure
2 In the Hand of the Goddess
3 Woman Who Rides Like a Man, The
4 Lioness Rampant

Week 6 - Technorati

I've tried the different searches with varying results. The search for blogs about, with exact phrase came up to almost 7000. Going to tags search without quotes is about 23,000 and with quotes 6300. The blog directory search without quotes was 465 and with quotes 280. Using quotes makes a big difference. The blog directory search with quotes seems to narrow results to library/librarian blogs. I recognized several of the blogs as ones that I have read or have in Bloglines. Many of the other sites are much more general.
Going through the 100 most popular blogs, I see several that I recognize. Looking at some of the other popular links, I liked the movies and dvds as ones I might like to look at. The others, not so much.
I'm still not sure that this is a site that I will use very much. I tend to use Google news or Bloglines to keep up with current stuff. It's not overwhelming like Technorati is.

Week 4 - more on finding feeds

Well, I thought I would give them a second or third or fourth (I forgot how many searches I did the other day) chance. I went back to the four listed and tried a broader search term. Technorati did the best, finding a number of blogs on target. syndic8 did so, so finding a few. Topix still doesn't have a clue. Feedster did well also. And Bloglines did quite well. I would still choose Bloglines if I was looking for new blogs. It's handy, easy to use, has good results.

Week 4 - Finding feeds

OK, I tried all of the ones listed. I was doing several very specialized searches.
Technorati needed me to be specific and even then it didn't find much. Syndic8 did well on one of the searches. Topix doesn't do hobbies or crafts or other things like that at all. It looks like its main point is news. It never found anything I was looking for. On Feedster, the tab for blogs made it easier to search and I found a couple of blogs on my subject. The one I found the easiest and most successful to use was Bloglines. For the most part, I was not impressed with any of the outside feed finders. I don't know if it was my subjects that were just not indexed by those sites or what.
Back when I first started blogs, I was reading The Shifted Librarian. The first aggregator she talked about was NewsIsFree. I got an account with them and used it for awhile. Then she talked about Bloglines and I went to them. I started out just searching them and found several library/librarian sites and subscribed to them. After that as I read blogs, they would mention other bloggers or have them listed on their sites.
I would also find the RSS logo on sites of interest and add them. Now, I basically just try to keep up with what I have. Sometimes a site quits posting and I'll drop them or someone mentions a site and I'll add it to try it out. If nothing else, I will try a search on a subject and blog and things will usually pop up. And most people list favorite blogs on their sites, so it makes it easy to add blogs that will probably be what you want and they have been screened for subject matter.
If you don't like a site, there is always delete.