Stone Age Web Searches
Dec. 27th, 2005 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerIn 1996 or 1997, while working at West Publishing, I wrote a short document for my coworkers explaining how to find information on the Internet. I'd been asked to do this by my boss because I was better at finding useful information than anyone else in the group, and she wanted me to share my wisdom.
While cleaning out my office today, I found a floppy disk with a copy of that document on it. It's kind of fascinating, both because of the things that have changed, and the things that haven't.
Parts of the document, with commentary, below the cut.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine if this were the way libraries worked: the government built a building, put in shelves, and opened the doors. Anyone who had something they thought should be in the library walked in and put it on a shelf somewhere. No organizational scheme was used-you just wrote down where you'd put something and told your friends. There might be some books on the shelves, along with religious tracts, political brochures, scrawled ravings in purple crayon, copies of Newsweek from 1988, diaries, photo albums, someone's notes from Intermediate Algebra….in short, it might be kind of like the web.
The web has opened up ways to offer volumes of useful information that simply weren't ever available before. For example, it wasn't practical to provide every person in Minneapolis with the yellow pages from Buffalo, New York. And while the U.S. Census data has always been public information, it took a very determined person to flip through the endless charts and tables. Now this information, and much more, is available on the web to anyone who wants it. But despite the promise of useful information, sifting through the morass of useless sites and unreliable information can be a daunting task, even with a search engine.
I still think this is a pretty good metaphor for the Internet. Except that these days, no one needs metaphores to understand the Web.
GENERAL SEARCH STRATEGIES
What am I looking for?
The first step in searching the Web is to identify what you want to find. Do you want a picture for use in a presentation? Do you want to know if you need any vaccinations before your trip to Thailand? Are you looking for a good joke about linguists? Then think about where you would look for this information if you could use any source other than the Internet. For example, to find out about vaccinations for Thailand, you could call the CDC (Center for Disease Control). Thinking about real-world sources of your information will give you some ideas of where to look. You might even be able to guess the web site that has what you need. (To find out about vaccinations for foreign travel, the CDC web site is at http://www.cdc.gov.)
I needed to get information on vaccinations for foreign travel in 1993, and had to do it by phone. My father thought at the time that the CDC needed to set up a GOPHER server or an FTP server or something with the information. I don't think they ever did that, but they were early web adopters.
What's likely to be out there?
Before you start your search, think a bit about what's likely to be out there, and try to narrow your search. Think about the reasons that people put information on the web. Would anyone have a reason to offer what you're looking for? (If the answer is "no," this doesn't necessarily mean it isn't out there.) However, there are four points to remember before you start looking.
There is information that isn't out there.
Let's say you're a freelance journalist who wants a list of every court case the Supreme Court has heard that challenged Roe v. Wade. You could try a political web site, but for detailed, reliable information, the best place to find it is not the web-it's WESTLAW. And the information on WESTLAW is not available for free (at least to non-employees). If someone makes their living by selling this information, they probably aren't going to give it away. You might get a free sample, you might find a site that provides something similar as a public service-but sometimes you have to either give up or pay money.
Note that I wrote this while working for West Publishing, the owners of WESTLAW, and I wanted an example of information you wouldn't readily find. It's kind of funny to read this now. First of all, the company that used to be West puts a lot of information on the Internet now. Second, these days if I wanted a list of abortion-related Supreme Court cases I could find it in about two seconds. The information available is much better now than it was in 1997. Also, Google is a way better search engine than AltaVista was.
Sometimes you'd be better off getting the information somewhere else.
You can find the complete works of Shakespeare on the web, and a group called The Gutenberg Project has put thousands of classic texts on line. Because the copyright has expired, the text is available for free. However, if you want to read Wuthering Heights (one of the books recently released by the Gutenberg Project), do you really want to read all 300+ pages on your computer monitor, or would you rather pay a couple of bucks for a used book that you can read somewhere more comfortable? If you want to read Julius Caeser, buy a copy of it or go to the library. If you want to search all of Shakespeare's plays to find out where the phrase "lend me your ears" came from, however, the web is the place to be.
Ha. Ha ha ha. I also was convinced in 1994 or 1995 that the Internet could be a great marketing tool but that nobody in their right mind would ever buy anything over the Internet.
Information from the web may be biased, inaccurate, or just plain wrong.
A lot of people on the web are pushing a product or an agenda. Just as you wouldn't necessarily take a political pamphlet at face value, don't assume that an electronic pamphlet isn't also presenting the facts in a slanted way.
In addition, just because someone says that they're an unbiased authority doesn't mean that they're telling the truth (on either count). The person claiming to be a Nobel-prize-winning economist could be a ten-year-old who thinks giving out investment advice is the funniest thing since prank phone calls. A lot of the time, there is just no way to tell.
And you know, this is information that people still have trouble grasping, but is absolutely as relevent and correct as it was in 1997. Not that this is unique to the web. I mean, sheesh. Look at how many people believe Faux News.
Even a reputable source may have its problems.
Reputable sources may not be secure-last year, hackers broke into the CIA web site and put obscene graphics on the first page. Reputable sources may be quoting bad data-according to the U.S. Census data, 16 people in my zip code claim to ride on the "subway or elevated train" to get to work each day. And reputable sources can suffer from mysterious computer bugs-I found a site on the web that has the NADA guide to used car prices (the "Blue Book") online. The prices it was quoting seemed wrong to me, so I checked the paper copy at the library, and sure enough-the prices it was quoting were off by thousands of dollars (too high in some cases, too low in others). So, caveat emptor--let the buyer beware.
If I were writing this now, I would cite the hoax alteration of Wikipedia. And, unlike some people who were apparently shocked to find this out, I know that Wikipedia is freely alterable by its readers. That's what "wiki" means. But I still use it as a reference all the time, usually without thinking twice.
Also, I should note that at the time, there was no subway or elevated train in my zip code. Now we have light rail! Cool, huh?
After the meat of the document, I went into a fairly lengthy explanation of Boolean searching, which you needed to understand in order to get the most out of AltaVista.
Google is SO much better than AltaVista was. I'll just say that again. Honestly, I rely on Google so heavily I can't remember how I got by without it. That applies to a lot of stuff on the Internet, actually. How did I ever manage to get anywhere at all without MapQuest and Yahoo Maps?
Anyway, here's the thing in this document that cracks me up the most, and is most revealing of how much the Internet has grown. I noted that I searched AltaVista for "antidisestablishmentarianism," and got 162 site matches.
I just searched Google, out of curiosity. 73,100 results. Yes, indeed. Our village has grown.
While cleaning out my office today, I found a floppy disk with a copy of that document on it. It's kind of fascinating, both because of the things that have changed, and the things that haven't.
Parts of the document, with commentary, below the cut.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine if this were the way libraries worked: the government built a building, put in shelves, and opened the doors. Anyone who had something they thought should be in the library walked in and put it on a shelf somewhere. No organizational scheme was used-you just wrote down where you'd put something and told your friends. There might be some books on the shelves, along with religious tracts, political brochures, scrawled ravings in purple crayon, copies of Newsweek from 1988, diaries, photo albums, someone's notes from Intermediate Algebra….in short, it might be kind of like the web.
The web has opened up ways to offer volumes of useful information that simply weren't ever available before. For example, it wasn't practical to provide every person in Minneapolis with the yellow pages from Buffalo, New York. And while the U.S. Census data has always been public information, it took a very determined person to flip through the endless charts and tables. Now this information, and much more, is available on the web to anyone who wants it. But despite the promise of useful information, sifting through the morass of useless sites and unreliable information can be a daunting task, even with a search engine.
I still think this is a pretty good metaphor for the Internet. Except that these days, no one needs metaphores to understand the Web.
GENERAL SEARCH STRATEGIES
What am I looking for?
The first step in searching the Web is to identify what you want to find. Do you want a picture for use in a presentation? Do you want to know if you need any vaccinations before your trip to Thailand? Are you looking for a good joke about linguists? Then think about where you would look for this information if you could use any source other than the Internet. For example, to find out about vaccinations for Thailand, you could call the CDC (Center for Disease Control). Thinking about real-world sources of your information will give you some ideas of where to look. You might even be able to guess the web site that has what you need. (To find out about vaccinations for foreign travel, the CDC web site is at http://www.cdc.gov.)
I needed to get information on vaccinations for foreign travel in 1993, and had to do it by phone. My father thought at the time that the CDC needed to set up a GOPHER server or an FTP server or something with the information. I don't think they ever did that, but they were early web adopters.
What's likely to be out there?
Before you start your search, think a bit about what's likely to be out there, and try to narrow your search. Think about the reasons that people put information on the web. Would anyone have a reason to offer what you're looking for? (If the answer is "no," this doesn't necessarily mean it isn't out there.) However, there are four points to remember before you start looking.
There is information that isn't out there.
Let's say you're a freelance journalist who wants a list of every court case the Supreme Court has heard that challenged Roe v. Wade. You could try a political web site, but for detailed, reliable information, the best place to find it is not the web-it's WESTLAW. And the information on WESTLAW is not available for free (at least to non-employees). If someone makes their living by selling this information, they probably aren't going to give it away. You might get a free sample, you might find a site that provides something similar as a public service-but sometimes you have to either give up or pay money.
Note that I wrote this while working for West Publishing, the owners of WESTLAW, and I wanted an example of information you wouldn't readily find. It's kind of funny to read this now. First of all, the company that used to be West puts a lot of information on the Internet now. Second, these days if I wanted a list of abortion-related Supreme Court cases I could find it in about two seconds. The information available is much better now than it was in 1997. Also, Google is a way better search engine than AltaVista was.
Sometimes you'd be better off getting the information somewhere else.
You can find the complete works of Shakespeare on the web, and a group called The Gutenberg Project has put thousands of classic texts on line. Because the copyright has expired, the text is available for free. However, if you want to read Wuthering Heights (one of the books recently released by the Gutenberg Project), do you really want to read all 300+ pages on your computer monitor, or would you rather pay a couple of bucks for a used book that you can read somewhere more comfortable? If you want to read Julius Caeser, buy a copy of it or go to the library. If you want to search all of Shakespeare's plays to find out where the phrase "lend me your ears" came from, however, the web is the place to be.
Ha. Ha ha ha. I also was convinced in 1994 or 1995 that the Internet could be a great marketing tool but that nobody in their right mind would ever buy anything over the Internet.
Information from the web may be biased, inaccurate, or just plain wrong.
A lot of people on the web are pushing a product or an agenda. Just as you wouldn't necessarily take a political pamphlet at face value, don't assume that an electronic pamphlet isn't also presenting the facts in a slanted way.
In addition, just because someone says that they're an unbiased authority doesn't mean that they're telling the truth (on either count). The person claiming to be a Nobel-prize-winning economist could be a ten-year-old who thinks giving out investment advice is the funniest thing since prank phone calls. A lot of the time, there is just no way to tell.
And you know, this is information that people still have trouble grasping, but is absolutely as relevent and correct as it was in 1997. Not that this is unique to the web. I mean, sheesh. Look at how many people believe Faux News.
Even a reputable source may have its problems.
Reputable sources may not be secure-last year, hackers broke into the CIA web site and put obscene graphics on the first page. Reputable sources may be quoting bad data-according to the U.S. Census data, 16 people in my zip code claim to ride on the "subway or elevated train" to get to work each day. And reputable sources can suffer from mysterious computer bugs-I found a site on the web that has the NADA guide to used car prices (the "Blue Book") online. The prices it was quoting seemed wrong to me, so I checked the paper copy at the library, and sure enough-the prices it was quoting were off by thousands of dollars (too high in some cases, too low in others). So, caveat emptor--let the buyer beware.
If I were writing this now, I would cite the hoax alteration of Wikipedia. And, unlike some people who were apparently shocked to find this out, I know that Wikipedia is freely alterable by its readers. That's what "wiki" means. But I still use it as a reference all the time, usually without thinking twice.
Also, I should note that at the time, there was no subway or elevated train in my zip code. Now we have light rail! Cool, huh?
After the meat of the document, I went into a fairly lengthy explanation of Boolean searching, which you needed to understand in order to get the most out of AltaVista.
Google is SO much better than AltaVista was. I'll just say that again. Honestly, I rely on Google so heavily I can't remember how I got by without it. That applies to a lot of stuff on the Internet, actually. How did I ever manage to get anywhere at all without MapQuest and Yahoo Maps?
Anyway, here's the thing in this document that cracks me up the most, and is most revealing of how much the Internet has grown. I noted that I searched AltaVista for "antidisestablishmentarianism," and got 162 site matches.
I just searched Google, out of curiosity. 73,100 results. Yes, indeed. Our village has grown.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 06:06 pm (UTC)And webcams. Which, I've just now realized, can be searched for on Google images.