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What's
Not on the Web
By Joyce Kasman Valenza
Editor's Note: The supplemental material
mentioned
in the print version of this article has been
incorporated
into the section of this article entitled: Antidotes
for Yahoo! Dependency. The additional items have
been
marked with an asterisk (*).
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Normally you'd find me gushing over sites on the Web that
are just
too great to miss. But let's stop to consider what's not
on the
Web. A few sad but true stories illustrate my point.
I've watched as a class of juniors researched noted
physicists on
the free Web, ignoring our fine print collection in
scientific history.
They turned away from the biographies and multi-volume
reference
sets right in front of them. They turned away from the
databases
of full-text science journals and happily printed one-page
sketches
from Encarta Concise or a sixth grader's Web project.
Last spring I sat on a panel as one of our brightest
seniors presented
the intriguing thesis: "Hitler's personality was
primarily
responsible for his rise to power." Her paper cited
several
online journal articles and higher-quality Web references.
It was
well written, but her research had glaring holes. She
missed Adolf
Hitler's own Mien Kampf and William L. Shirer's
The Rise
and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.
She
missed all of the biographies we had on the shelves and
all of the
many other thoughtful studies available in bookstores and
larger
libraries. Though she and I had been in the habit of
consulting
on research throughout the year, she did much of this one
at home.
With the new independence offered by the Web, students
lose a critical
element in the research process—human consultation.
And they
often neglect critical sources.
Just recently, another student approached me at the end of
his research
rope. He needed information on the history of break
dancing. He'd
spent a full weekend searching the Internet and found lots
of personal
pages devoted to "moves." When he finally asked
me for
help, we considered the time period when break dancing was
at its
peak. We dusted off a few Readers' Guides to
Periodicals
from the early '80s. We retrieved articles from print
versions of
Time and Newsweek and U.S. News & World
Report.
"Does anyone know about this?" he asked me.
We followed that "aha" with a visit to our
school's online
subscription services where we found journal articles that
linked
break dance historically to hip hop, explored break
dancing as a
form of self-affirmation for inner-city youth, and related
it to
the poetry of the streets. None of this was available on
the free
Web. (See Select Subscription
Databases.)
When students are researching the Kent State massacre, the
Challenger
Disaster, the war in Vietnam, the Middle Ages, or the
Renaissance,
they do themselves a great disservice limit-ing their
exploration
to the free Web. Certainly they will find material on the
Web. But
for all of these topics they will miss hundreds of
comprehensive
nonfiction titles, each developed by authors who may have
spent
years building expertise in a particular area of
knowledge. For
areas of modern history, much of which happened B.E.D.
(before the
era of instant digitization) or around 1994, they miss a
wealth
of contemporary reporting and analysis. When they're
researching
the Civil War, they will discover that Mathew B. Brady's
extraordinary
photographs are on the Web. What they might not discover
is that
Bruce Catton's thoughtful commentary is not. Kids need
both. We
need to let them know that it is possible the best stuff
may not
even be on the Web. Students need to perform their
information searches
both online and in the stacks.
It may appear that the concept of universal free access to
high-quality
information has been realized. It hasn't. Don't be
deceived. The
fact is, though there are many good and generous people,
government
organizations, museums, and universities out there sharing
their
knowledge by creating useful Web sites, the vast majority
of authors
and publishers are still in the business of making money,
and they
just aren't giving their work away. Though more magazines
and newspapers
draw readers to their sites by providing online excerpts
from current
and past issues, if you want access to the full content of
the archive,
you will usually have to buy it.
So beware: If your students are doing serious research,
they won't
find much of the material they'd find in a library's
reference,
nonfiction, or modern fiction collections on the free Web.
Here's what your students typically won't find on the free
Web:
- high-quality reference books (other than some
almanacs, dictionaries,
and encyclopedias that are not particularly threatened
by loss
of sales or titles that have found some alternative
revenue
through their Web presence);
- full-text nonfiction—this includes biographies,
those
richly illustrated titles that draw young people into
new areas
of knowledge, literary criticism, and scholarly works;
- any book—fiction or nonfiction—that is
still under
copyright, generally any book written by an author who
is alive
or who has been dead fewer than 75 years;
- comprehensive journal, magazine, and newspaper
indexes and
the full text to support them; or
- magazine articles written before 1990. These are
seldom available
online on the free Web or through subscription
services.
You'll notice I've been careful to note the limitations of
the
free Web. On the subscription side of the Web,
students can
access full-text journal literature and high-quality
reference materials,
which brings to mind a curious phenomenon I've been
observing.
Many students with access to the materials provided by the
for-fee
or subscription services of the Web may not recognize
their value.
Either they are unaware or they choose not to exploit
these rich
services. Instead, they mechanically travel to the one or
two Web
search tools whose addresses they remember, often
bypassing their
best sources. Parents and teachers: be aware that your
children
have access to much more! Help fight Yahoo!, AOL Search,
or Excite
dependency. (See Antidotes for Yahoo!
Dependency.)
A growing number of states offer a suite of subscription
services
that can be accessed at home. If your state does not, it
is likely
that your school or public library does. These services
generally
include full-text periodical databases and
content-specific references
(science encyclopedias, literary criticism) to meet the
needs of
all researchers—kindergarten through adult. Among the
offerings
the State of Pennsylvania provides through its ACCESS PA
Power Library
are the AP Photo Archive, EBSCOhost (with its general,
children's,
health, and business periodical databases), the Scientific
American
Online Archive, Poem Finder, Scribner Writers Series,
Encyclopedia
of Life Sciences, and Encyclopedia of Astronomy and
Astrophysics.
The vast and powerful Web still has its limitations. I
asked Internet
education guide and former librarian Kathy Schrock (http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide)
what she found lacking on the Web. She responded:
"What is
not often found on the free Web is material that cites its
source.
The only way to tell if you have found [high-]quality
information
on the Web is to first conduct research in the traditional
way—in
your library, in reference books and print
materials—to allow
yourself to create your knowledge base on your topic. Only
then
can you decide if what you find on the Web É is worth
using and
supplements, complements, or disputes your research."
It is not difficult to improve the quality of student
research.
Make the bibliography part of the assessment process. Ask
students
to annotate, evaluate, and rank the sources they cite.
Have students
prepare drafts of their bibliographies. I function as a
bibliography
checkpoint for many major student projects and pick up the
holes
before they become research disasters.
If I don't sign off, students don't proceed with their
writing.
We can avoid shoddy research if we recognize that despite
the independence
the Web affords, adult consultation is critical, offline
sources
have significant value, and there is more to the Web than
the results
typical search engines retrieve. Evaluation and reflection
are important
steps in the research process. Teachers and parents can
guide students
in producing high-quality research products by developing
an awareness
of what is available and insisting on a balanced list of
valuable
sources.
Select
Subscription Databases
ABC-CLIO Schools (http://abc-clio.com/schools)
offers full-text databases in American history and
government, and
world and state geography.
AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive (http://ap.accuweather.com/apphoto/index.htm)
has more than 500,000 high-quality, current, and historical photographs and
is perfect for students creating multimedia or desktop publishing projects.
BigChalk.com (www.bigchalk.com)
offers several database options, including several
versions of eLibrary,
a full-text source that pulls materials from six media
types—newspapers,
magazines, books, pictures, maps, television, and radio
transcripts.
eLibrary elementary is available for younger students.
ProQuest
Platinum offers coverage of more than 2,000 newspapers,
magazines,
journals, and reference works.
Congressional Quarterly Library (http://library.cqpress.com)
offers comprehensive coverage of controversial issues
addressed
in two of CQ's publications, CQ Weekly and The CQ
Researcher. Each
article includes background, a chronology, the major sides
of the
debate, and an annotated bibliography.
EBSCOHost (www.epnet.com/database.html) offers thousands of full-text
and abstracted articles from general magazines, business and health journals,
and newspapers. Searchasaurus is the kid-friendly database interface from which
students may access Primary Search, Middle Search Plus, EBSCO Animals, and Funk
& Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia.
Encyclopedias Schools should subscribe to, and
students should
use, full-featured encyclopedias online, rather than the
freebies.
Grolier Online (http://go.grolier.com),
Encarta Deluxe (http://encarta.msn.com/products/deluxe/signup.asp),
and World Book Online (www.worldbookonline.com)
are some examples of what's available.
Facts.com (http://facts.com) offers comprehensive news coverage from
1980 to the present, including graphics, maps and carts, weekly updates from
Facts On File World News Digest, and a growing archive of historic events. Also
available are Issues and Controversies, which provides deep background on important
current issues, and Today's Science, which presents the "latest scientific
discoveries and the fundamental concepts that underlie them," drawing material
from major scientific journals, magazines, and newspapers.
GALENET (www.galegroup.com/schools/index.htm)
offers outstanding curricular coverage through its
Resource Centers,
including Student Resource Center Gold, Literature
Resource Center,
Biography Resource Center, and History Resource Center.
Its Discovery
Series includes DISCovering Science, U.S. History,World
History,
Authors, Shakespeare, Multicultural America, Poetry, and
Nations,
States and Cultures. The site also has a Student Health
Reference
Center and American Journey (Primary Sources). InfoTrac
products
offer access to hundreds of full-text magazines and
newspapers.
SIRS Knowledge Source (www.sirs.com/products/database.htm)
combines three databases: Researcher, Government Reporter,
and Renaissance
and offers thousands of selected full-text articles on
social, scientific,
historic, economic, political, and global issues and the
arts and
humanities.
SIRS Discoverer Deluxe is a reference database for
children
in Grades 1–9, offering full-text articles and
graphics selected
from more than 1,200 carefully chosen domestic and
international
publications. Articles are assigned reading levels based
on educational
content, interest, and readability.
WilsonWeb (www.hwwilson.com/ftabsind.htm)
offers the Readers' Guide Full Text database, which
features access
to lengthy abstracting and full-text journals. The Wilson
Biographies
databases include full text and images from the standard
reference
Current Biography.
Antidotes
for Yahoo! Dependency
Subject
Directories
About.com (http://about.com)
Human guides offer their picks for best links as well as
original
content in more than 700 specialties.
Argus Clearinghouse (www.clearinghouse.net)
is an academic selective collection of topical guides.
BUBL LINK/ 5:15 (http://bubl.ac.uk/link)
Selected Internet resources covering all academic subject
areas.
Read the About section for an interesting explanation of
the site
name.
Digital Librarian (www.digital-librarian.com)
"A librarian's choice of the best of the Web"
with emphasis
on the "A librarian." The site is maintained by
one librarian:
Margaret Vail Anderson in Cortland, New York.
Infomine: Scholarly Internet Research Collections
(http://infomine.ucr.edu)
is produced by the University of California and intended
for use
at the university level. Infomine is a "comprehensive
showcase,
virtual library, and reference tool."
Librarian's Index to the Internet (http://lii.org)
The author's very favorite, LII is an annotated subject
directory
of Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians
for their
usefulness. The Current Awareness Service points to the
best new
material on the Web.
Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org)
A comprehensive directory maintained by "a vast army
of volunteer
editors." The "Project is a collaboration
between Lycos,
Mozilla.org, and HotBot to build the Internet's most
comprehensive
taxonomy of Web content."
Searchedu.com (www.searchedu.com)
searches university and education sites only and ranks
them in order
of popularity.
StartSpot (http://startspot.com)
This network of helpful gateways includes CinemaSpot,
BookSpot,
LibrarySpot, and HeadlineSpot.
WWW Virtual Library (http://vlib.org/overview.html)
The oldest Web catalog of the Web is "run by a loose
confederation
of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for
particular areas
in which they are expert."
For
Kids
KidsClick! (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!)
Subject directory sites have been selected, categorized,
and annotated
by librarians. Sites are tagged by reading level and
amount of graphics.
Multnomah Homework Center (www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/homework)
The librarians at Multnomah County Library (Portland,
Oregon) organize
the materials students most need into categories that
ensure easy
access.
Searchopolis (www.searchopolis.com)
offers broad but filtered searching and the ability to
sort its
directory of selected Web sites by grade level. It also
makes handy
a suite of reference tools.
Trolling
the Invisible Web
AlphaSearch (www.calvin.edu/library/searreso/internet/as)
A gateway to the "finest Internet gateways."
CompletePlanet (www.completeplanet.com),
in beta version at this writing, searches the "deep
Web"
for relevant search engines and databases.
FindArticles.com (www.findarticles.com)
Free services that offer full-text access to articles
dating back
to 1998 from more than 300 magazines and journals.
Fossick.com (http://fossick.com),
"the WebSearch Alliance Directory," is a
selective collection
of more than "3,000 specialist search engines and
topical guides."
Invisible Web (www.invisibleweb.com)
"The Search Engine of Search Engines."
Lycos Searchable Databases (http://dir.lycos.com/reference/searchable_databases)
SearchIQ.com (www.zdnet.com/searchiq/subjects)
is a subject directory of search engines.
xrefer (www.xrefer.com)
"The Web's reference engine" offers free access
to more
than 50 reference titles.
Next
Generation Search Tools
*Applied Semantics http://oingo.com
(formerly Oingo) Offers a "meaning-based search" to
distinguish
variant meanings among ambiguous terms (Type in "java" and
you'll
be asked to select among coffee, the programming language,
or several
towns.)
AskJeeves (http://askjeeves.com)
allows users to pose questions in natural language and
select results
from a database of similar questions.
Direct Hit (www.directhit.com)
Uses popularity, how often a site is visited, and how long
visitors
stay to score relevance with a ranking system of one to
five little
"people" icons.
Dogpile (www.dogpile.com)
Dogpile's metasearch presents results from each of the
search engines
it queries individually, rather than mixing them all
together into
a single list.
*Excite http://search.excite.com/search
Excite's new Zoom In function helps refine the search with
lists
of related suggestions. Great for narrowing a vague topic.
Google (www.google.com)
Google's link relevance forces the most-often-linked-to
results
to the top of the hit list. A refreshingly clean interface
and an
"assumed AND" makes this an especially useful
tool for
students.
Guidebeam (http://guidebeam.com)
suggests subcategories even before you view your results.
*ILOR http://ilor.com
Powered
by Google, ILOR's advanced hyperlinks allow you to search
more efficiently
by creating lists, saving specific results for later use,
viewing
similar pages or pages that link to a result
IxQuick (www.ixquick.com)
is a metasearch tool that translates searches into proper
syntax
for each search engine and eliminates duplicates. The
"star"
scoring system helps identify the sites that more than one
search
engine reports as relevant.
Northern Light (http://northernlight.com)
uses "precision relevance ranking" and
"classification
intelligence" to organize results into "little
blue folders"
on the left side of the screen.
Profusion (www.profusion.com)
The new version, in beta stage at this writing, looked
promising
for searching both the visible and invisible (or deep)
*Query Server http://queryserver.com
This metasearch tool merges, ranks, and clusters results.
*Scirus http://scirus.com
An example of a growing number of subject-specific
engines. Scirus
searches science content only.
*Subjex http://www.subjex.com
A new dialogue-guided search engine that goes beyond
natural language
to respond with questions to users' specific search
queries.
*Surfwax
http://surfwax.com
Offers its own brand of meaning-based search with
FocusWords (descriptors),
SiteSnaps (quick previews and summaries), and
ContextZooming.
Web. Simpli (http://simpli.com)
asks users to specify or refine when there are confu-sions
in meaning.
Type in "java" and you are asked to choose among
Java
as a program language, term for coffee, or Indonesian
island.
Vivisimo (http://vivisimo.com)
is a new metasearch tool too good to miss. Results are
"concept
clustered" —sorted into logical subcategories.
Copyright © 2001, ISTE (International Society for Technology
in Education).
All rights reserved.
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