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Presented by Jamie Edrich, Reference Librarian

Sachem Public Library

http://sachem.suffolk.lib.ny.us/

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About

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WWW.GOOGLE.COM

1. Web

2. Images

3. Groups

4. News

5. Froogle

6. Local

Simply select the search method you want, enter any terms into the field and hit return (or the “Google Search” button)

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Searching Fundamentals

1. Isolate the essence of what you are looking for into a few “keywords” ex: book review blink

2. Try most obvious words first. For information on Picasso, enter Picasso rather than painters

3. Make your keywords specific. antique lead soldiers gets more relevant results than old metal toys

Sample searchesUse the search terms that would reveal the perfect site you are looking

for. ex: 15th president united states

ex: passport application vs. apply for passport

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Advanced Operators(to control your results)

- EXCLUDE a word from results with the “minus key”- To find the fish: bass -music- To find the instrument: bass -fishing- To find the patriot (not the beer): samuel adams -beer

~ RELATED words and synonyms with the “tilde”

ex: ~humor returns sites on humor, comedy, fun, jokes

“ ” Quotations to find an exact phrase ex: “that was the year that was”

* Wildcard (asterisk) to find missing word(s) but not letters ex: “apple has * calories” or “Four * and * Years ago”

The Wildcard command does Not perform stemming or truncation.Google uses stemming by default.

A search for children labor will find ‘child labor’ also.

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Advanced Search Pagehttp://www.google.com/advanced_search

• Languages

– Search for sites in any of 35 possible languages• File Formats

– search for specific file types (pdf, ps, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, swf)– ex: map filetype:pdf google filetype:ppt

• Dates– Search for sites updated in past 3, 6, 12 months, anytime

• Domains– Search a specific domain (.org, .edu, .gov) or even a specific website– ex: psychology site:utexas.edu avian flu site:cnn.com

• Similar sites– Find web sites with similar content to your favorite ones– ex: related:cnn.com

• Links– Find out what pages are linking to a given site– ex: link:suffolk.lib.ny.us

Clck

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Query Modifiers

• intitle:– lets you search for terms in the title of a webpage– ex: intitle:museum

• allintitle: all words you enter must be in title

• inurl:– Lets you search for terms in the url of a webpage– ex: inurl:gallery

• allinurl: all words you enter must be in url

• cache: shows google’s stored page (search terms highlighted)– ex: cache:www.yahoo.com

• info: information about the page– ex: info:www.yahoo.com

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“Hidden” Features of Google’s Web Search Calculator

basic math ex: 87 * 22, 4**3, 8*(24+17) , 7! , square root of 64roman numerals ex: 1983 in roman numeralsweights/measures ex: how many teaspoons in a tablespoon , ounces in 7.5 cups

ex: feet in a mile / inches / cm / lightyearscurrency ex: 1 usd in pounds / yen / euros / pesos

Note:You can enter the conversion in either direction. ex: 1 foot in inches or inches in a footYou can use proper abbreviations as well. ex: tsp in a tbsp or ft in a yd

Spell Checker/DictionaryGoogle automatically looks at your terms to see if you’re usingthe most common spelling of a word. If not, it makes a suggestion.

ex: hemorage, bramuda, speilberg

Search By Number

UPS, FEDEX and USPS tracking ex: 1Z9999W99999999999

Area Codes, V.I.N. #’s, UPC codes ex: 631, 073333531084

Search By Number Range

ex: willie mays 1955..1960

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Phonebook:For Residential and Business listings

• Enter last name and state ex: phonebook: Smith CA• Enter last name, city and stateex: phonebook: Smith Los Angeles CA• Full name and city/state ex: phonebook: John Smith Los Angeles CA• Business name, city/state ex: phonebook: pizza Holbrook, NY

When you enter either a full name or a city and state you don’t need to include “phonebook:” in the search.

ex: John Smith, NYex: Smith, Holbrook, NY

Reverse phonebook lookupEnter a 10 digit number (doesn’t require dashes) ex: 631-588-5024

Zipcode lookupLook up a listing by last name and zipcode ex: Smith, 11741

More “Hidden” Features

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Stock Quotes/Mutual FundsEnter any NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX symbol for financial infoex: IBM, MSFT ex: stocks: ibm mco msft

Street mapsEnter a street address, city, state and zip code,then select “Google Maps”, “Yahoo Maps” or “Mapquest” for your Mapex: 150 Holbrook Rd, Holbrook, NY, 11741

Note: Provide as much of the address as you can, though often the street address and city (or zipcode) will be enough

ex: 165 University Ave Palo Alto , 150 Holbrook Rd, 11741

(Even More Hidden Features)

Definitions Provides a list of definitions found on the web, for almost any word, idea or concept… ex: define:tsunami , define:trade winds, ex: define:habeas corpus , define:peripheral neuropathy

Music Search – enter a musical group to get links to albums, songs, lyrics, etc.

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Google Image Search(over 1 billion images indexed)

• Set “filtering” in preferences (to exclude explicit material)• Uses same basic search rules as web search. • Images are indexed according to image filename, text on

the same page and other factors.

Term Used Number of Results dog 2,770,000 images pointer 221,000 images pointer dog 7710 images pointer breed 3090 images

focus your search

File Types: jpg, gif, png, any file typeColors: black & white, grayscale, full color, any colors

Advanced Image Search lets you specify the SIZE, FILE TYPE and COLOR

Sizes: small, medium, large

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Google Local / Google Mapshttp://local.google.com

Search for maps, directions, businesses

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Google Labshttp://labs.google.com

• Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)– search for academic articles, books ex: cloning– search for books in library ex: molecular cloning

• Book Search (books.google.com)– search contents of books, peek inside

ex: book lust

• Google Video (video.google.com)– search tv programs and videos

• Google Sets (labs.google.com/sets)– ex: donner, blitzen -- mets, yankees -- earth, venus

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Google News Search(search 4500 news sources)

News Searching uses same basic search rules and operators

Advanced News Search

News Source select a newspaper or TV channel to searchex: CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.

Location search a news source by a country or stateex: Texas, Russia, UK, Turkey

Occurrence Search the article text, the headline only, the body only, the url

Date Search any time period within last 2 months

You can use an “advanced news search” to find all articles with “Alito” in the Headline of articles in the Washington Post from the last week.

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Language Tools

**You can translate selected text or entire web pages **

English

FrenchGermanItalianPortugueseSpanish

1. Search for web sites in any language

2. Find pages located in any country

3. Translate between languages

Chinese (beta)Japanese (beta)Korean (beta)

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Froogle(Google Product Searching)

RCA 494,463RCA TV 68,315 P61310 17

1. Enter any product name to finds photos of relevant products and links to the stores that sell them.

2. Browse categories on the Froogle homepage

3. Limit your search by price range and sort results by price, product or merchant rating.

4. Search for products located near you (NEW)

Search on just the model number to quickly find a specific item

Number of Results

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Downloadswww.google.com/downloads

Google Toolbar:•Add a search box to your browser •Highlight search terms on results page •Search from any webpage •Block annoying pop-ups •Automatically fill in online forms •Browse by name

Google Earth: (earth.google.com) *requires a moderately powerful PC

•Zoom into locations around the globe, get directions, locate businesses, schools, parks, churches, banks, etc.•3d buildings for 40 cities•3d terrain•Measure distances from your house to a whole country