Online Searching

Review
Online Searching: A Guide to Finding Quality Information Efficiently and Effectively, Third Edition aptly provides contexts and tools for online searching. Library and Information Science educators, students, and practitioners will appreciate this text as a companion to information seeking. This book is compelling and provides real-world examples of theoretical foundations and practical skills for readers.
-- Melissa Villa-Nicholas, assistant professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, University of Rhode Island
Cheryl Knott’s updated edition of Online Searching includes a whole chapter, plus multiple references throughout, on the important role of publicly available web search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo in serving information needs for a variety of clients. This subject matter, a welcome addition to the comprehensive exploration of traditional academic databases, provides librarians and other information professionals an opportunity to review and refresh their web search skills in order to communicate good practices to clients.
-- Mary Ann Francis, lecturer and faculty lead, Search Mastery Interest Group, University of Maryland College of Information Studies
I have adopted this most authoritative, research/theory-based, and practical textbook of Online Searching: A Guide to Finding Quality Information Efficiently and Effectively since its first edition. Students voted it as the best textbook for the course of information storage and retrieval and online searching. The third edition not only answers the questions of 'Why Scholarship is Not Free?' but also the question of 'What is Google?' The timely inclusion of Chapter 8 Web Search Engines greatly satisfies such curiosity and enhances professional online searching services and personal online searching skills.
The textbook is empowered by helpful videos of each topic to let the visual speak. Such visual and audio enrich the learning experience. The third edition provides additional video interviews of reference librarians and experts in the field. It is a multimedia digital textbook for online searching.
-- Yan Ma, graduate school of library and information studies, Harrington School of Communication and Media, University of Rhode Island
This third edition brings new updates and additions to an already successful text. The two authors definitely captured the latest on the ever-changing scene of information searching and information retrieval. The chapter on web search engines’ enhanced searching and indexing capabilities introduces information seekers to running more complex searches enabling them to retrieve more relevant information from the Internet. Markey and Malone also highlight the research impact numbers associated with scholars’ productivity, a recent feature added by many databases and publishers. I'm looking forward to introducing the new edition to the students in my advanced online searching class.
-- Hermina G.B. Anghelescu, professor, School of Information Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
Online Searching prepares students in library and information science programs to assist information seekers at all levels, from university faculty to elementary school students. Included in the third edition are interviews with librarians and other information professionals whose words of wisdom broaden graduate students’ perspectives regarding online searching in a variety of work settings serving different kinds of information seekers.
The book’s chapters are organized according to the steps in the search process:
1. Conducting a reference interview to determine what the seeker wants
2. Identifying sources that are likely to produce relevant information for the seeker’s query
3. Determining whether the user seeks a known item or information about a subject
4. Dividing the query into main ideas and combining them logically
5. Representing the query as input to the search system
6. Condu