Search Tip of the Month (October 2009)

How to find a definition?

If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the "define:" command in Google.

Example: define: university

BUBL

BUBL is an Internet-based information service developed for the UK higher education community. BUBL stood for BUlletin Board for Libraries. However it is now known as the BUBL Information Service. It can be described as a directory or a gateway for online resources. BUBL staff evaluates new resources and services on the Internet, and decide whether or not they are suitable for inclusion on the service. Then these resources are categorized according to their subject content and arranged under the relevant subject category along with the URL. This arrangement is known as the BUBL Subject Tree which is based on the Dewey Decimal Classification. You can either browse the categories or search the database for locating resources. Since the resources listed here are selected, evaluated and very often annotated, users can find some quality information using the service.

URL is: http://bubl.ac.uk/

Website of the Month (July 2009)

Government of Sri Lanka Official Web Portal

This important web portal serves as a single gateway to different government websites. So that a user can access various government ministries, departments, institutes and get their information. This web portal has three interfaces in Sinhalese, Tamil and English languages. It has organized the websites under several categories such as: President, Parliament, Ministries, Departments, etc. Under each category, the websites are basically arranged according to the alphabetical order, with a link to that website.

You may use the following URL to access the Government of Sri Lanka Official Web Portal: http://www.gov.lk/

Search Tip of the Month (July 2009)

Boolean Operators

In searching, Boolean operators are used to combine two or more search terms in order to show their relationship to the database. Basically, there are three (03) Boolean operators and they are explained as follows:

• AND - combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, education and technology finds articles that contain both terms. The famous search engine Google supports this technique. Actually, in Google, there is no need to type AND, because it connects two terms with AND combination by default.
• OR - combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, education or technology finds results that contain either term. In Google, you have to type the OR operator between two search terms, with a space in both sides, as shown in the above example.
• NOT - excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, education not technology finds results that contain the term education but not the term technology. In Google, you can use this technique by typing "space & minus sign" before the term that you want to exclude. Example: education -technology

Try these searching techniques with Google and let me have your feedback.

Welcome to Internet Searcher's Handbook

Welcome to Internet Searcher's Handbook. The objective of this blog is to introduce the trends and techniques of online environment particularly to the Sri Lankan academic and library community. Also to equip them with necessary knowledge and skills to be successful in the online information environment. Special features of this weblog are:

• Search Tip of the Month (to introduce an effective search tip)
• Website of the Month (to introduce a useful local website)
• Specific Online Resources (to introduce useful Online resources)

This weblog will come up with latest information, and the editor of the weblog invites you to be a regular visitor of this blog!

The editor of this weblog is Tharanga Ranasinghe, an Assistant Librarian as well as a Visiting Lecturer in LIS, at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. His personal weblog is: http://tharangaonline.blogspot.com/