Searching
and Researching
on
the Internet and the
World Wide Web
For Students, Teachers, Librarians, and Folks
Who Want to Stay in the Know
Introduction to the Internet and the World Wide Web
Every day,
millions of people around the world use the Internet to search for and
retrieve information on all sorts of topics in a wide variety of areas.
The information can appear in several types of digital formats, such as
text, images, audio, or video. Individuals, companies, research labs,
libraries, news organizations, television networks, governments, and
other organizations all make resources available. People communicate
with each other, sharing information and making commercial and business
transactions, using electronic mail. All this activity is possible
because tens of thousands of networks are connected to the Internet and
exchange information in the same basic ways. Never before has so much
information from such a wide variety of sources and in so many formats
been available to the public.
The World Wide Web is not the same as the Internet, but the two terms
are popularly used as synonyms. The Web is the information connected or
linked in a way that is like a spider’s web. Using a Web browser—the
computer program or software that lets you access the World Wide
Web—you can find information on almost any topic with just a few clicks
of your mouse button. Several search tools (programs that search the
Web for resources) are readily available. When you type a keyword or
phrase into a form and click on a button or icon on the screen, a list
of items appears. You simply click on the ones you want to retrieve.
The amount and variety of information available are astounding, but
sometimes it’s difficult to find appropriate material.
Millions of people around the world use the Internet for communication,
research, business, information, and recreation. One of the most
popular and effective ways to tap into its resources is through the
World Wide Web, a vast collection of information connected like a web.
There is no beginning or end; the information is accessible in a
nonlinear fashion through connections called hyperlinks. You view the
resources on the Web by using a program called a Web browser. You
navigate through the Web by pointing to hyperlinks (underlined or
boldfaced words or phrases, icons, or images) and clicking. To use the
Web and the Internet effectively, you need to know how to find and use
the services, tools, and programs that give you access to their
resources.
It’s possible to link information in almost any digital form on the
World Wide Web. Text files, programs, charts, images, graphics files,
digitized video, and sound files are all available. Not only can you
find things from a variety of media, but you also get a great deal of
information in many categories or topics.
When using the Web, you work in a hypertext or hypermedia environment.
A Uniform Resource Locator, or URL, specifies items, services, and
resources. Web browsers use these URLs to specify the type of Internet
service or protocol needed and the location of the item. For example,
the URL for the Web page General Collections Library of Congress is
http://www.loc.gov/rr/coll-general.html. The protocol or service in
this case is HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and a Web browser
using that URL would contact the Internet site www.loc.gov and access
the file coll-general.html in the directory or folder named rr. The
documents on the Web are called Web pages.
A number of different types of information sources are available on the
World Wide Web. They include:
Directories of selected collections of Internet and Web
resources, arranged by subject
Search engines, which are tools that provide keyword searching
capability
Meta-search tools, which allow you to access databases from one
place
Specialized databases, which contain comprehensive collections of
hyperlinks in a particular subject area, or which are self-contained,
searchable indexes made available on the Web
Discussion groups, of which several thousand groups exist to
share opinions and experiences, ask and answer questions, or post
information about a specific topic
Blogs, wikis, and tagged collections, enabling individuals to
easily classify and put information on the Web.
