Search Engines

Search Engines Sponsored by Academic Institutions

• The Scout Report - The Scout Report is a selective collection of scholarly sites. Every site is annotated. You can perform keyword searching for over 5000 sites or use the subject directory which has so far cataloged about one-half of the reports.
• INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections - The Library at the University of California at Irvine has brought together nearly 10,000 scholarly internet sites which are arranged in a subject directory but also allows for keyword searching.
• Librarians' Index to the Internet - This index to the internet is arranged by subject and the sites are selected and annotated by librarians. Besides the subject directory you can browse a list of subjects used, or use the search engine to perform a full database search. Every site has an annotation written by a librarian.
• BUBL Link - This is an UK national information service based at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. The subject directory is directed towards the research community and is a good site to explore for a European slant on quality Internet sites. Updates are made available in a separate file.
• WWW Virtual Library This search engine is maintained by a group of volunteers, each experts in their field.  It can be excellent but with volunteers the maintenance of this site can be inconsistent.

   Search Engine by subject

  • Biology Browser - BiologyBrowser, produced by BIOSIS, is a free web site offering resources for the life sciences information community. Find useful information collected from outside sources to include links to current science news stories, relevant web sites, and more.

  • Scirus - for scientific information only. Responding to the need for focused, comprehensive and reliable overviews of relevant scientific information, Elsevier Science has developed the powerful Internet search tool Scirus. Scirus distinguishes itself from existing search engines by concentrating on scientific content only and by searching both web and journal sources. It enables scientists, students and anyone searching for scientific information to chart and pinpoint data, locate university sites, and find reports and articles in a clutter-free, user-friendly and efficient manner.

  • OAIster - records from more than 400 institutions "Our goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone" University of Michigan.

  • Repositories of Primary Resources - A listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar.

  • Combined Health Information Database - a bibliographic database produced by health-related agencies of the Federal Government. This database provides titles, abstracts, and availability information for health information and health education resources.

  • Searchedu.com - This search engine allows you to limit your searches to specific types of internet sites such as education , government , military, and ebooks.

Search Engines for U.S. Government Sites

• Federal Web Locator - This site is excellent for locating federal agencies, boards, commissions, committees, quasi-official agencies, non-government federally related sites, multilateral organizations, and international sites.
• GPO Gate - Comprehensive list of official federal resources including: Catalog of Government Publications, Federal Resources by topic, Federal Agencies, U.S. Code and more.
• Google: U.S. Government Search - Google U.S. Government Search offers a single location for searching across U.S. government information, and for keeping up to date on government news. You can choose to search for content located on either U.S. federal, state and local government websites or the entire Web -- from the same search box.

Commercial Search Engines

• Alta Vista - This search engine has a relatively large full-text search engine. It allows simple keyword searching, and has an advanced search interface for Boolean searching.
• Forbes, Best of the Web - Over 3700 sites that Forbes considers the best on the web. They cover health, education, investing, shopping, management, finances, travel, and more.
• Google - A most favored search engine by those in the know.
• HotBot - HotBot offers some unusual search options such as media type and geographic location and personal name. It also offers limited case-sensitive searches, e.g., the company NeXT
• Kartoo - A meta search engine which presents it's results on a map.
• LibrarySpot.com - The sites featured on LibrarySpot.com are hand selected and reviewed.
• Lycos - This site allows multimedia searching
• Refdesk.com - One of the most logical subject directories on the web. The first screen layout allows access to a wide variety of information and is easy to read.
• WebCrawler This search engine combines several search engines.
• Yahoo - Yahoo works especially well as a subject directory but also allows keyword searching.

Multiple Search Engines

• Metacrawler  - This site sites will search AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, WebCrawler and Yahoo all at one time.
• Metor: The Gate to Information  A meta-search engine that queries Northern Light, FAST Search, Google, AltaVista, EuroSeek, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, and Lycos
• ProFusion - Sponsored by University of Kansas
• Dogpile - a meta-search engine
  

Search Engines for Young People

• Ask Jeeves for Kids - At this site a child may enter a question and Jeeves tries to point you to the right web page that provides an answer.
• KidsClick - KidsClick list about 2,000 web sites in various categories. This sites were selected by librarians.
• Yahooligans - Yahoo has designed this site for children ages 7 to 12. Adult-oriented banner advertising will not appear within the service and searches will not be forwarded to Yahoo's search engine partner as the adult Yahoo version does.

You are visitor number: 

For Questions and Comments, please email  kathiel@cos.edu