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a recent study found that 3 out of 4 students don't search Google efficiently, and you probably know other people who could use some Googling help. This infographic is for them and it also might make a handy poster with reminders for basic tricks.

When your formative years are spent working your fingers through apps and iPads, smartphones and YouTube, the digital world and its habits can bend and shape not just how you access information, but how you conceptualize it entirely.

Back in October, the geeks were crapping their collective shorts in anger at some ill-advised changes coming out of Mountain View. If you'll recall, Google tweaked Reader and rolled out some crappy apps in what was called the week Google messed up. "We're leaving Google!" the geeks proclaimed.

"The NCSU Libraries Mobile Scavenger Hunt is an interactive, technology-rich way to introduce students to the library. Developed in response to student and instructor feedback collected in 2010-2011, it leverages the motivating power of situated learning and the fun of team game dynamics to orient students to the Libraries' spaces, promote the use of emerging technologies, and foster confidence in using the Libraries' collections. The activity is run using iPod Touches and several free apps and online tools. Students answer Scavenger Hunt questions using Evernote, a free app for multimedia note-taking, which is installed on the iPod Touches distributed to the Scavenger Hunt teams. Librarians are able to monitor students' answers in real time as they are entered into Evernote, keeping score on a Google Docs spreadsheet."

"What's Verbatim search? It's Google search without any synonymization, spell-correction, personalization or other interpretation. That is, it's just a basic search without any alterations in what you typed into the query box. To be clear, 99% of the time, those alterations actually improve your search results quite a bit. But every so often you really want just what you typed. Verbatim mode is for those situations. "

Providing a unified interface through which patrons can access nearly all of your library's collection has an obvious appeal on all sides. Users get the googley familiarity and convenience of a singular, wide-ranging search box and, according to a recent case study done at Grand Valley State University, the reduced friction patrons face when using library resources correlates to an increase - potentially dramatic - in the frequency with which they access them. If the new tool is like Google, then why does it require instruction?

Google's search engine is a powerful and impressive tool for locating information online. Unfortunately for many students, the simplicity of the default search interface can lead to some pretty poor search habits and results.

One question I hear quite a bit is this: Don't we have to teach the basics of Boolean search to our students? The answer, from a Google perspective is this: We teach Boolean searching only for using traditional database systems.

So, apparently we need a link resolver.

"Googlighting Stranger" ... to the tune of the theme song from the old Moonlighting TV show.  Love that. Also love that Microsoft feels this threatened. 

Researchers at the Information School at the University of Washington released an important and thought-provoking report in late 2009: "Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age."1 The study confirms and expands on the results of other reports. Its particular value is the size of the population studied, the diversity of institutions represented, and the use of both a survey and follow-up interviews for data collection.

A way to turn off this annoying feature

"UC Berkeley - Search, Google, and Life - Guest Lecturers Sergey Brin, Bradley Horowitz, Jason Schultz, and more - This free course from the University of California at Berkeley gives you an opportunity to sit in on some of the greatest minds in modern technology as they discuss how their products, services, and companies play a major role in shaping the way we obtain information, process it, and view the world. They also discuss how they came to be involved in those technologies, and how search and search engines work and have changed the internet as we know it."

Comments are the best p Students of all ages can have a good deal of trouble doing research online. (And not just students, we'll admit, if we're honest.) The obvious answer to this problem is to train people to do better searches. But the most obvious answer may not be the best one.

Summary of her first year as head of library instruction, creating a new program, assessment, lessons learned. 

Hugh McGuire: "The distinction between "the Internet" and "books" is arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years. Start adjusting now."

"The messages or lack of messages from educational institutions on these practices is generating a learning black market which masks the sheer scale of these new modes of engagement."

Found here: http://celeripedean.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/unified-resource-discover-comparison/