The World Wide Web is full of places where you can search for the information you need. There are many search sites to choose from and it can be difficult to know which one offers the best place to start. Below are several search engines and directories the librarians at Clark State think you will find useful.

Evaluating Web Sites:

Critical Evalution of Sources - Clark State Library's guide to evaluating your information sources.

Checklist for Evaluating Websites - Used in English 111 for Library Research.

Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools - Cornell University.

Evaluating Information Found on the Internet - The Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University.

Evaluated Web Directories:

Librarian's Index to the Internet - This is an excellent starting point when you are looking for a website on a topic. It is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 11,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness.

Infomine: A selected, annotated subject directory of resources evaluated by librarians, aimed at an academic audience.

Internet Public Library - Extensive collection of publicly accessible, free resources, including on-line books, magazines, newspapers, and carefully selected websites.

The Scout Report - Published every Friday both on the web and by email, The Scout Report is a publication of the Internet Scout Project and provides a way to stay informed of valuable resources on the Internet. Compiled by a team of professional librarians and subject matter experts, they select, research, and annotate each resource. ISR has been published continuously since 1994, and is one of the Internet's oldest and most respected publications.

Or, choose below for a favorite search engine:

General Search Engines & Directories:

Google - This is the largest search engine on the web and it's a great starting place for general searching. It includes web pages, images, usenet discussion forums, and news. Google uses link analysis, which ranks web pages so the most relevant pages are closer to the top of your results.

Yahoo! - The sites you'll find here are actually indexed by real people who evaluate and categorize the web sites. The results are organized in a hierarchy by subject and are easy to browse. Yahoo uses Google when it searches for web pages, so starting here can be helpful for beginning web searchers.

Ask Jeeves - You can use AskJeeves to ask natural language questions, such as "what is the capital of Wyoming?" Jeeves will then take the keywords from your question and show you a list of possible answers. It also shows you results from other search engines.

Meta-Search Engines - These sites search multiple search engines at once and display the results on a single page. They are good when you want a general idea of what's available--they are usefule for breadth, not depth of searching. Be careful wen you choose a meta-search engine because they may not include the largest search engines, like Google or All the Web.

Dogpile - Searches about 15 search engines and directories using keywords.

Vivisimo - Searches a number of popular search engines and organizes the search results into folders.

Profusion - Meta-searches search engines, directories, discussion groups, news sources, online publications, and archives.

Specialty Search Tools & Web Sites:

GovEngine - A comprehensive directory of official Federal, state, and Local government and court links.

Search Engine Watch & Search Engine Showdown - These are comprehensive sites for when you want information about search engines. They include ratings, sizes, reviews, and helpful tips.