Search Engines vs. Databases

Databases are reviewed and recommended. 

Databases are Purchased.

When pursuing fig information, databases will be the best place to find scoop. Databases are purchased, reviewed and recommended by librarians, organized, and stable (they do not change).....unlike search engines which have the exact opposite characteristics. Good advice from a PRISMS student says to use the mnemonic PROS for databases: purchased, recommended (reviewed), organized, and stable. Brilliant! In this post, the PROS concept has been put into illustrative from by using fig images for each piece of the mnemonic. In this way my topic is connected to the lesson!

Databases are Organized.

Databases are stable, and not changing.

Web Wisdom and Recognizing Legitimacy

Anyone can upload a website, scholars and scammers alike. Some signs to look for when making judgment calls about the credibility of an online source:

Author

Date

Workable links

Information can be cross-referenced

For an overall perspective, consider who is funding the website. The old cliche "Follow the money." has persisted over time because it is true...money is the source of most information and many actions in our world.

Be careful what you bite!

3 Truths of Search Engines

Search engines are not mind readers, although that would interesting if it could be done! Search engines can only offer results for websites it has collected and indexed and because of the indexing will only offer results based on what they think the keywords in the search box mean. Because search engines collect their own list of websites, without conferring with other search engines, there is very little overlap between their results.

These 3 reasons come together to explain why, when getting a "No Results Found" message after a search, a researcher needs to 1) alter the keywords or arrangement of keywords and/or 2) change search engines. Bottom line: make a change!

Change it up with different synonyms and/or related terms, and/or change search engines.

Figs as a keyword is pretty straight forward. However, synonyms could be exotic fruits, biblical fruits, Mediterranean fruits. Related terms fruit harvest, fruit trees and propagation, and perhaps Newtowns. Search engines to consider might include

Some of the search engines available online.