Staying up to date in the ever-changing Web search world: refine your Web-searching skills

Information Outlook, March, 2004 by Rita Vine

Finding Current Awareness Services

If you need to go beyond the list of services in this article, NewsisFree (http://www.newsisfree.com) has a good searchable list of RSS feeds on all topics. Arlene Eis of InfoSources Publishing produces the Informed Librarian (http://www.informed librarian.com), a monthly e-mail update with links to more than 100 online journals and news services for librarians. LibDex maintains a list of RSS feeds for almost 100 library-related weblogs at http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html. Steven Cohen and Blake Carver keep a similar list of about 50 of the most popular library-related RSS feeds at http://www.lisfeeds.com.

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What Are Your Goals for Current Awareness?

All information professionals need to stay up-to-date on Web search--but everyone's current awareness needs are unique. For example, an independent business researcher who uses the Web extensively may need to keep up-to-date on new business and statistical search sources, plus information on new advanced search techniques for Google. A teacher librarian may need to stay current with the best sites for online lesson plans or search sites that have preselected resources for children in elementary school. An academic librarian who uses the Web occasionally to supplement a large online database and licensed journal collection may need only to make occasional and minor adjustments in her Web search toolkit and may not need to exploit the Web fully on a regular basis.

Goals help you stay on track and stay focused on your real needs. They provide benchmarks that enable you to test the update tool against the stated need. Don't try to stay up-to-date on everything. (You never will, and you'll give up in frustration.) Instead, select the services that best meet your actual needs, and carve out a small amount of time each week to track the accumulated news of the services that you select. Periodically reassess the services you subscribe to--did the service that looked so great two months ago produce any really important news for you? If not, reconsider the value of including it in your update portfolio.

Keeping Up to Date-An Essential Part of Professional Life

Many information professionals worry that their users know more about the Web than they do. Refined skills in Web search are critical in a consumer-driven information world where everyone thinks they can search the Web by popping keywords into Google. Expertise in Web search includes not just awareness and use of advanced search features of search engines, but the knowledge of high-quality alternative Web resources for online information retrieval. Unlike books, which are static once printed, the Web is a moving target--good Web search sites go bad, others change their focus, and some disappear altogether. However much we wish that the Web would slow down a little so we could catch up, that's unlikely to happen as the Internet achieves the status of a mass-medium marketplace of goods and services. Staying up-to-date on Web search enables information professionals to move beyond the mythology that anyone can do a Web search, and regular skill-sharpening is an essential component of professional value.