Yes, Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and other search engines are very useful tools to find information. I use them myself everyday to find specific URLs for conferences, hotels or phone numbers. But, I do not use them for research because they are better ways of finding the scholarly information found in the deep, or “invisible” Web. The deep Web is comprised of data, articles and various other materials those search engines don’t always access.

Preciseness, validity, and freshness are keys of any search.

A general search engine often returns several thousands links to a given query. You may trust that the algorithms used by the search engine will put the most relevant results first, but the search engine may have misinterpreted your search intent. The order may have been tweaked by special interests groups who use all ways possible to make sure their websites appear first. With general search engine results do you really have the time to go through all those links?

It is very easy for anyone to publish, anonymously even, a page on the Web without having to go through any verification process. There is no one to validate the content of web pages like it happens with a scholarly journal or book. Articles and books go through a review and editing process by experts in the field. In the case of journals, it is also known as the peer-review process. In a library, the books are selected by professional librarians, who make sure the information is valid and reliable. With general search engine results do you know how to evaluate those websites?

A final issue with information on the web is how fresh the information is. Websites can either disappear quickly or worse stay untouched for years without revision. This tends to happen far less often with legitimate websites. With general search engine results do you know how to gauge how recently published are the results?

Fortunately, there are excellent tools to mine the Deep Web. The USF Libraries subscribe to an array of databases in all disciplines where you can search by topic, author or source. Those databases are put together by the publishers of the information themselves or by vendors who work with the publishers to make the content available. The Libraries subscribe to them for your convenience and usage as some are not accessible to individuals. A lot of databases give you access to the full-text of the information. Some examples of those many databases available to you are Compendex (engineering), ABI-Inform (business and management), ERIC (education), PsychINFO (psychology and social sciences), INSPEC (computer science and IT) and MEDLINE (health sciences). You can find them using the MetaLib tool at http://metalib3.fcla.edu/V/?func=find-db-1 (or, from the USF Virtual Library, choose “Databases/Newspapers”).

Google itself understands the problems with general search engines. They have developed Google Scholar, a search engine that specifically indexes scholarly and peer-reviewed literature. There are some issues though with the Scholar flavor of Google. It is still unclear exactly what it indexes. Some of the content is known and of value though while not always current; the rest is unknown. Scholar will offer some citation statistics but they are not always accurate. The ways you can search and display results are more limited than in the Libraries’ databases. Most importantly, unlike the Libraries’ databases, Scholar usually does not give you access to the full, final, published version of the materials. One point in favor of Google Scholar is its simplicity since most Web users are familiar with the interface. Google Scholar could be used for a preliminary search but cannot, at this point, replace the scholarly databases.

In conclusion, research is a still a long-winded process. “One-stop shopping” for scholarly literature is still not perfected. But things have changed tremendously since the days of printed indexes and will only get better. The USF Libraries are giving you great tools to help you identify the best sources for your needs. So resist the siren call of Ask Yahoogle, go beyond the “good enough”. Your research deserves better.

(This text was edited into a column for The Bull Pen, volume 1, number 2, December 2005, p.7. The Bull Pen is a student newsletter published by the USF Lakeland Student Goverment Association.)