Teaching Web Search Skills

9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

How do you teach people to search the Web? Search strategies and resources that may seem obvious to you are quite likely to be not as clear to others. In this seminar, you will learn techniques for teaching Web searching, not just to beginners but also to those who think they already know everything about Web search. In this practical seminar, Greg Notess covers the advantages, disadvantages, and techniques for hands-on training, demonstration sessions, and online, self-paced guides for teaching others about Web search skills and strategies. Anyone involved in teaching and training, whether in an academic environment or not will gain important insights from this seminar.

Delving into Deep Web Business Resources

9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Anyone approaching business research today needs to understand the wealth of information available on the deep, invisible Web. To effectively and efficiently find data on companies, industries, markets, and management, you should consult specialized search engines as well as general search engines; utilize alternative formats such as directories, groups, portals, images, blogs, RSS feeds, and statistical files; and consider fee-based tools in addition to the free Web. This seminar, taught by an experienced business searcher, will concentrate on resources but will also include practical techniques for using these resources. Whether your business research is conducted in a corporate, academic, or government environment, you will benefit from the insights gained from this seminar.

Exploring Internet-Enhanced Ready Reference

1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Effective use of quick-answer tools on the Internet can provide added research power to those staffing a library's reference desk, whether it's physical or virtual. Ready reference for both basic—and not-so-basic —inquiries is an essential component of information provision. In this workshop, Ran Hock, author and former reference librarian, will focus not only on identification of key and lesser-known Internet reference sources, but on the comparison and evaluation of these resources. You will leave not only with some new techniques and resources, but also a greater ability to quickly and easily access the right answers from the best sources.

Public Records: Investigative Research Techniques

1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Public records contain important information, such as property ownership, professional licenses, bankruptcies, marriages/divorces, and court judgments. The press makes extensive use of public records for the stories reporters write; companies like to do background checks to minimize risk and exposure; business researchers recognize regulatory filings contain information not always widely known, and local governments are replete with data at the city, county, and state level. Genie Tyburski, a law librarian and researcher, shares her investigative research techniques, both in terms of resources and strategies.

Continental Breakfast

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Predictions on the State of Web Search Engines

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

What’s new in the Web search arena that will affect information professionals? What are search engines doing that will help or hinder us in finding relevant and unbiased answers to our search queries? Chris will highlight recent changes in specific Web search engine tools, provide tips about what to look for next year, and discuss the impact of these changes for information professionals. His crystal ball gazing has been astonishingly good thus far, and his unique access to the movers and shakers within the Web search industry makes Chris’ insights extraordinarily valuable to WebSearch University attendees.

Search Engine Smarts

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Experienced searchers know that results differ depending upon search engine and query used. This is due both to underlying search algorithms and advanced search capabilities. Greg Notess, in his Search Engine Showdown Web site and his On the Net columns for ONLINE, follows search developments extraordinarily closely. He will give a thorough review of developments in Web search techniques, focusing on advanced search strategies and new content.

Cultivating Flexibility in Web Search

11:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

It’s not enough to know the technicalities of search—intuition and experience play an important role as well. The ability to turn on a dime, to think about a research topic from a fresh angle, and to have an all-encompassing view of search possibilities are crucial components shared by expert searchers. It’s not simply deciding between Google and Factiva, it’s how to think about the entire research process for a given project. While that may sound philosophical, Mary Ellen Bates approaches flexible searching from an eminently practical perspective.

Keeping Up with Current Awareness

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Whether it’s alerts from Google or Yahoo! News, RSS feeds from a blog or your local newspaper, notifications of changes to Web sites, or e-mailed press releases, current awareness technology is changing at a very fast pace. Keeping up with how to keep up is the challenge faced by information professionals these days. In this session, you’ll learn the tools you need to institute and maintain a comprehensive current awareness program.

Library 2.0

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Librarian bloggers have been busy discussing Library 2.0, a semi-spinoff from the IT discussions around Web 2.0. Although the term is ill-defined, it points to a more collaborative and interactive work environment, heavily dependent upon technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social software. This session looks at Library 2.0 from a practical perspective, both in terms of research and work flow.

How Good is That Doggy on the Search Screen? Evaluating Web Search Results

3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Information professionals are generally comfortable with the classic delineations of deciding whether found information is true, timely, and appropriate. We have learned to beware of suspicious Web sites—and even of some that don’t initially appear suspicious. In an era of customer-created content, such as blogs and wikis, and misinformation deliberately planted to appear credible, information professionals must be on their guard even more than in the past. Not only must they question data they find, but they need to be prepared to help their users to do the same.

Information Trapping

3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Regular readers of ResearchBuzz know that its editor, Tara Calishain, has a real gift for finding weird and wonderful information sources. In this session, she shares her favorite five ways to trap information.

Multimedia Searching

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

There's more to search than text. Information comes in many shapes, forms, colors, sounds, and moving images. People, accustomed to obtaining information from television and radio, want to search the spoken word and watch film clips. They expect information professionals will include multimedia sources in their Web research. This session will help you do just that.

WebSearch Clinics & Case Studies

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Continental Breakfast

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Competitive Intelligence

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Competitive intelligence isn’t just about competing companies. You and your organization can equally well be faced with competitive threats from the economy, new technologies, other industries, and even your customers. While the practice of competitive intelligence is not a new endeavor, the expansion of Web resources adds to its complexity and allows for insights not previously thought possible.

Book Search Meets the Web

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Among the many types of information that can be searched on the Web, books have been late to the party. The advent of Google Book Search, followed by the Open Content Alliance, individual publishers' initiatives, and Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" functionality, has brought book searching front and center. Learn, from a searcher's perspective, the practical applications of book search.

Open Access Sci/Tech Literature

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Open access, in the realm of scientific scholarly literature, can mean self-archiving, maintaining an institutional repository of articles, and/or publishing in a designated open access journal. This session will review the concept of open access and devote its attention to finding tools for sci/tech information in the open access environment.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It—News Searching on the Web

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

News is all around us. We are deluged with news on a 24/7 basis. Newsgroups, traditional news outlets, newsfeeds, specialized newsletters—the list goes on. The growth in news sources leads to difficulties in culling out the real news from rumors. Weeding out duplicate stories is a constant headache. This session will help you determine which sources are credible and how to handle the news that affects your individual environment.

Move With the Times: Searching and Information Delivery on Mobile Devices

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Mobile devices, from PDAs to pocket computers to cell phones, are becoming increasingly prevalent in modern life. As more people rely on these devices, the ability to use them for text messaging, e-mail, and Internet research is also increasing. However, there is little consistency among device manufacturers about how this is accomplished and what techniques need to be employed.

Not the Usual Suspects

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Several WSU faculty members share their best practices and favorite sources. A question and answer session will follow, allowing attendees to interact with faculty and each other.

Real-Life RSS

1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

RSS is becoming the preferred way people receive and read the news. Expanding beyond the original idea of really simple syndication for Web sites, RSS is now a delivery method for fee-based information as well as free, is no longer restricted to a simple feed, and can be based on keywords.

Ads and Searching

2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Even a quick study of search engine company financials reveals that their revenues derive from advertising rather than straight search. This has profound implications for information professionals engaged in serious research. The relationship of advertising and Web search engines will be thoroughly examined in this session.

Price's Pearls

3:45 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

What has caught the attention and interest of Gary Price recently? Regular readers of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker know full well that it could be just about anything. With an eclectic set of interests and a comprehensive understanding of what is important to information professionals, Gary is almost certain to have found something of value to everyone at WebSearch University. Yes, we save the best for last and Price’s Pearls is it.