Finding more in the library

o The Collection and the Catalog.
You can find over 60,000 youth books in the Ann Arbor District Library collections, plus CDs, tapes, videos, and magazines, and the entire adult collection. Everything but magazines is listed, and may be searched for, on the library's Online Catalog.

The online catalog can be reached and searched in four ways:

  1. Come into one of the branches of the Library and use a terminal there.
  2. Use a telnet program to connect to the catalog through the internet. Connect to the address

    aadl.annarbor.lib.mi.us

    It's the next best thing to being there.

  3. Dial into the library (313.994.5301) using a modem and standard asynchronous communication software. Set communication to 8 bits / 1 stopbit / No parity, and terminal emulation to vt100. Press "Enter" a time or two when you've connected. Type Control-Z to exit.
  4. Use a web browser to search the catalog via DRA-WEB. You may also try this at various locations throughout the Main Library and at the branches.
    http://aadl.annarbor.lib.mi.us/

The Librarian is IN!
Often the best way to find something is to ask a pro: ask your librarian!

o More about the library.
Follow this link to the "In the Library" page: a guide to programs and services.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/aapl/cplibr.html

Finding more on the web--Kids' sites.

o Yahooligans
Search engine designed especially for kids, by the people at Yahoo. "Cool sites of the day" included.
http://www.yahooligans.com/
o The Anthologies page
The "anthologies" section of the AADL Youth Page lists organized collections of other sites around the net.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/aapl/cpanth.html
o The Kids' Search Page
Search seven different kid-suitable collections from a single screen!
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/aapl/ksearch.html
o KidsClick!
A new search service and web library from the makers of the Kids' Search page.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!

Finding more on the web--General searches

Finding what you want on the Web is not always easy: you need to learn how to ask the right question, often by trial and error, and which search services (or "engines") allow you to ask which kind of questions. It is almost always a good idea to try at least two different engines: they index different documents, and index them in different ways. Here are some quick links to some of the more popular engines:

Search Engine Collections

o The Netscape "NetSearch" page.
Busy one-page source for links to the most popular search engines.
http://home.netscape.com/home/internet-search.html
o Internet Finding Tools
An experimental service that selects the best search engine for you, based on your own criteria.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dwr/523Project/index.html
o Using the Best Search Engine
A guide by Gillian Westera to the pros and cons of the web search engines with the widest coverage. Includes a "cheat sheet" that describes all the basic features of the different engines in a nutshell.
http://www.curtin.edu.au/curtin/library/staffpages/gwpersonal/senginestudy/zindex.htm
o "Search.Com" multiple searches.
Can't remember the best search engine for the job? This page lists most of the best searches around, from special subjects to phone numbers.
http://www.search.com/

Multi-Engine Robots

A single form allows you to post simple queries simultaneously to several different search engines, and receive a single list of results, often with duplicate hits removed. Excellent choice when your query can most effectively phrased as a search for a simple string of characters: a single word, name, etc.

o MetaCrawler multiple search.
Searches several major indexes at once. Easy, but not always as reliable as doing it yourself.
http://www.metacrawler.com
o Savvy Search
Smart search of up to 19 search engines. Also serves as a convenient list of oddball search engines.
http://www.savvysearch.com/
o Search the DogPile
Samples the results from Yahoo!, Lycos' A2Z, Excite Guide, World Wide Web Worm, WWW Yellow Pages , PlanetSearch, What U Seek, Lycos, WebCrawler, InfoSeek, OpenText, AltaVista, Excite & HotBot (plus others for Usenet or ftp sites).
http://www.dogpile.com/
o MetaFind Search
Comprehensive results from OpenText, WebCrawler, InfoSeek, AltaVista, Excite, and HotBot, arranged as you ask.
http://www.metafind.com/

Individual Search Engines


o AltaVista search
A breakthrough when it first appeared, and still one of the most comprehensive search services available. Allows both simple string searches and more complicated Boolean searches. Even the simple search can be refined (see the help file!) by making some keywords more important than others and by restricting the search to particular parts of documents (like title or URL).
http://altavista.digital.com
o Excite Search
http://www.excite.com/
o Lycos Search
http://www.lycos.com/
o InfoSeek
http://www.infoseek.com/
o HotBot Search
http://www.hotbot.com
o DejaNews
Stores and searches old messages from UseNet news groups
http://www.dejanews.com

Rev. 31 December 1998
Mod.