Google Fu Lesson

Lesson Pre-Assessment

Please click here to complete the (not graded) assessment

Welcome to "Google-Fu"

Today we will learn how to harness the power of Google through advanced search tools as well as how to evaluate resources found on the open web. 

This will:

•  enable you to find the best resources for your patrons
• provide you with the skills to evaluate those resources for reliability.

Let's start!

Please download a copy of this handout to keep by clicking the plus sign.

Narrowing Search Results

Site:

When is this helpful?
You can narrow your search results to a specific site or to a specific type of site. If your patron wants information about a health topic, you could add in site:cdc.gov.

If they want scholarly resources available from universities, you could limit to educational sites by adding site:.edu.

These search results number over 51,000,000 results.

With less than 30,000 results, these search results are more concise and relevant.

ticks site:.cdc

Using this limiter with the search term "ticks" will narrow the results to only pages about ticks published on the CDC website.

Pair Activity

Please discuss in your pairs when you think you would use this tool. Think of examples from past interactions with patrons - would this have been helpful?

filetype:

When is this helpful?
If your patron is looking for handouts or presentations that have already been created for a project.

If the patron wants printable handouts, limit to filetype:PDF.

If they are looking for a slideshow, limit to filetype:PPTX.

global warming filetype:pdf

Using filetype:pdf with the search term "global warming" will give you only results that are PDFs. This can help if you want a pre-printed fact sheet or an article.

Kahoot Quiz

Participate in this Kahoot Quiz

TIME

Located under the tools menu (top right of your seach results).

When is this helpful?
If your patron is trying to locate information from a specific date range. 

If they only want the most recent news, you can limit to the last 24 hours.

flooding (last hour limit)

Limiting the search results to the last hour helps to get the latest news and updates on specific events. In this case, the broad search for flooding shows all updates published worldwide in the last hour.

Pair Activity

Please discuss in your pairs when you think you would use this tool. Think of examples from past interactions with patrons - would this have been helpful?

Final Activity

A patron is looking for information about meningitis and the effectiveness of the vaccine. Please outline your search strategy and any tools you would use below. Bring your response to class so we can discuss as a group.

Placeholder Slide

Widening Search Results Section

Placeholder Slide

Interesting Google Tools Section

Placeholder Slide

Evaluating Resources Section

Post Searching Lesson Assessment

Please complete this assessment

View Live Results Together

Pre-Assessment: Click Here

Post-Assessment: Click Here