Searchin’ for the One I Love
A list of favorite search engines
I want to give a nod, first, to a search engine that cut down the time it might have taken me to complete this task. Thank you Search 22. This is a search engine for search engines. Search 22 presents a dozen or more general topics such as “health,” “song lyrics,” “kids,” and “news”. A click on any one of these then produces a chart of the most popular search engines for that particular topic. Underneath each chart are additional suggestions for even more search engines. This particular search engine search engine was an invaluable time saver.
My favorite search engine here was, hands down, Google. As an experiment, I typed in The Grapes of Wrath (a novel I will be teaching this semester); Google produced a mother lode of possible web sites, bragging that it had found “187,000 in 0.7 seconds. That’s quite a few to choose from. Metacrawler was also impressive in the suggested web sites it produced on the same topic. Working from my Dell computer, MSNDell has, up until now, been my major search engine. Although this activity has led me to other meta engines, I still have a fondness for MSNDell; it has always served me efficiently in the past. I will throw in a cautionary note about one search engine my students are so tremendously fond of: Ask Jeeves. The results at Jeeves are often off topic and often of questionable validity.
Interested in investigating particular health issues or medical conditions? A number of search engines proved quite accessible in getting “down to earth” information on either a very general or more personal level. As my experimental search term, I used fibromyalgia, the rather mysterious and debilitating pain condition suffered by – among others – Laura Hilldebrandt, the author of Seabiscuit. My favorites in this category begin with WebMD. The engine is easy to use and provided plentiful sites and articles. PersonalMD (“Your Lifeline Online) is also excellent and even offers a Spanish language function. When I logged on (February 18, 2004), the major topics offered for search included “Bird Flu Hits Pets in Japan,” “New Form of Mad Cow Found in Italy,” nad “Breast Cancer Linked to Antibiotic Use”. These global concerns should not mask the fact that the site is also valuable for researching on a more personal level. Lastly, MedHunt provided a wealth of articles, though its presentation is a little dry and lacks the flash and dash of the other two sites.
It’s always important to find search engines that will lead younger children to safe web sites whether your computer has extensive filters or not. There are a number of kid-friendly search engines available. I’ll begin with KidsClick! because its homepage is bright and cheerful with amusing graphics. KidsClick! advertises itself as the “web search for kids by librarians; its URL reads, in part, “berkeley.edu”. “Facts and Reference,” “Weird and Mysterious,” “Reading, Writing and Speaking,” and “Sports and Recreation” are among the more than a dozen broad topics covered by this engine. Yahooligans also presents itself colorfully though its offerings are not quite as extensive. On a specifically more serious note (although not so serious as to be stodgy) is the search capabilities of EducationPlanet. Topics covered here include “Art and Music,” “Computers and the Internet,” “Health and Nutrition,” “Language Arts,” “Math” and “Social Studies”.
As an English teacher, I’m often on the lookout for popular song lyrics that may make reference to literature. Suzanne Vega’s “Calypso” is a wonderful take on that lovely nymph’s story from The Odyssey; Cream’s (Are you old enough to remember Eric Clapton’s first “supergroup?) “Tales of Brave Ulysseus” is also an allusion to Homer’s great epic. Both Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine” have recorded versions of “The Ballad of Tom Joad” (Grapes of Wrath) while innumerable rap songs speak of deep alienation, a topic covered in the “Voices of the Strangers” unit in Montgomery County’s senior curriculum. A popular topic (beside downloading the actual music!) lyric search engines abound. My favorites here would begin with LyricsFind and Lyrics.com. Theses engines are all relatively the same in the number of accessible songs; the major differences lie in the more decorative or more sparse presentation of the material. Two other equally complete engines I’ve used are AbsoluteLyric and AZLyric.
When a project calls for a poster and the question from the class is “Mr. Parker, what if I can’t draw?”, a good search engine that can uncover photographic images is a pretty valuable tool. Using “George Bush” as my experimental search term, I got good results from picsearch; more than twenty pages of photo “opportunities” on the President came up. These images ranged from serious news images to more satirical images with a definite political agenda. With so much to choose from, a student would simply have to be cautious to choose the more objective images. AllTheWeb also offers a wealth of sharp, clear photographs on a wide variety of topics with an index that is easy to navigate. Worldphotos.com is a little more daunting in finding exactly what you might be looking for, but the scope of the images offered is worth the extra time spent to access them.
Today’s news instantly, of course, via the Internet. The best luck is found, I think, at the big name news search engines. Here one can be fairly certain that the information is complete and accurate and as “up-to-the minute” as e-news can be. My favorite search engine for news is msnbc, followed closely by cnn. For news with a local slant, nothing beats thewashingtonpost.com. In my search, I did uncover a search engine that is new to me and decided to check it out just to broaden my horizons. I actually do like the breadth of information and the presentation style found at HeadlineSpot.