Online Searching

The main benefit gained from this course was refining searching skills I already possessed. Obviously, as an undergraduate and graduate student, and as a library employee, I have had many occasions to research various topics. However, I had no formal training previous to this course. I now have lots of new knowledge to make my searching more efficient and effective. For example, knowing about the Thesaurus feature in databases has changed my life! My searching has never been more accurate. Other techniques like pearl growing, Boolean operators, truncation, etc. I had, but was able to hone these skills throughout the class.

Aside from the thesaurus feature, another new thing I learned was Dialog. This was the first time I had ever heard of Dialog. I cannot say I am a fan of Dialog, but it is great to know about all types of databases and searching. Dialog certainly made me think long and hard about my searches before I performed them since I didn’t want to waste time or money. A lot of planning should go into all searches and Dialog really emphasized this.

Overall, I have a better understanding of all kinds of databases and search engines and feel confident I can perform accurate searches in all of them, no matter what my research topic might be. In my evaluation paper for this class (attached), I further discuss in detail what I learned about the many datbases and search options available to library professionals and others with research needs.