3rd topic

Search tool and search strategies

       Alhamdulillah, now we are in topic three which is all about search tool and search strategies. In this topic at first we concerned with the library catalogs. Library catalog system supposedly refer to the information retrieval system. With the help of this system we can easily find out any books or periodicals from the library. As well as this system gives us the information and guidance on how to conduct with the library catalog system. Furthermore during this period we also came to know about the library OPAC system which actually stands for Online Public Access Catalog. This system serves us focal search point for our library system. We can search by the name of title, author, publisher or date of publication to find out any book. By finding out any book in sort time this system helps us to save our time.

       In this session we have learnt about the information search tools which are actually related with the internet, because with the help of internet we can find out any information within a second. Due to this reason internet is considered as one of the best tools for searching any kind of information. Now a day’s internet has become the environment of information where we can find out any kind of information without any delay. Internet constitutes a large number of search engines to get available information. The great example of search engines are Google, Alta Vista, Being, yahoo, ask.com, live search and so on. To acquire any kind of information we can use these engines. 

      During this topic our another main lesson was connected with the specialized databases. At the beginning of the class our lecturer asked us some brief question about the previous topic which was on information search tools. When she recognized that the previous lesson was done then she proceeds with the next topic. At first she introduced us with the general knowledge about the database and to continue she showed us some of the slide show on it. As far as I understand about the online database it is a collection of computerized information or data such as articles, books, graphics and multimedia that can be searched to find information.

        To continue our class, she started with the database search engine. In order to search any information by using the online system, we can follow two ways which are simple screen search and advanced screen search. The example of simple screen search is Google search which is used by most of the user to find out any kind of information. And the example of advanced screen search is the searching tool which we use to get more information about the topic. We can search any information by mentioning the topic, keyword or full text. 

        The new thing which I have gained from this topic was, if we want to search any information about any topic what we have to mention in order to get the right information. For getting actual information about any topic we can search by subject, keyword or full text. At what time we should use which method it depends on the topic .Again we can also search by using media type and using phrase, instead of using the whole sentence for searching essential information. We can use phrase to find out any suggestions in short time. It will save our time and provide us the needed information.

       Finally, with the truncation and wildcard we have finish this topic . First of all our Miss explained us what is the meaning of truncation and wildcard, and in which way we should use these two method to get the needed information. She narrated all the important point about this topic by using her informative slide show.First of all our Miss explained us what is the meaning of truncation and wildcard, and in which way we should use these two method to get the needed information. She narrated all the important point about this topic by using her informative slide show. From this class I came to know about this topic which is 'Truncation and Wildcard both assists us to broaden our search in order to have appropriate information about the topic’. Moreover in this search we may also use retrieve multiple spelling of the synonyms. These search systems expand the search to locate all the words at the beginning with the same root. During this class our respective Miss gave us a lot of meaningful example to clarify our concepts about this topic. By attending this informative class I was able to have a clear concept about the lesson.

       To continue this class she started with the phrase searching. Before go through to the new topic our respective lecturer again reminded us about the previous topic. She asked us several questions to make sure that we understand the previous one. To make clear she again re-explained the previous topic. Formerly, our lecturer started with the new part which is phrase searching. Usually phrase searching is used when we use a strings word instead of a single word. But there is a disadvantage of using phrase searching which is retrieving less information. As a great example if we want to search for 'information literacy' then we can use this phrase searching system and it will give us the meaning of the whole word. But at a same time if we search word by word it will give us more information. In the system of phrase searching we can use bracket or inverted comma for the database to understand our search. And these are all what we have learned from topic three.