December Read/2

Title: How to Find Out Anything: From Extreme Google Searches to Scouring government Documents, a Guide to Uncovering Anything About Everyone and Everything

Author: MacLeod, Don

Call Number:001.42 M165H 2012

Number of Pages: 256

ISBN: 9780735204676

Book Description (From back cover):

            In How to Find Out Anything, master researcher Don MacLeod explains how to find what you’re looking for quickly, efficiently, and accurately-and how to avoid the most common mistakes of the Google Age.

            Not your average research book, How to Find Out Anything shows you how to unveil nearly anything about anyone. From top CEO’s salaries to  police records, you’ll learn little-known tricks for discovering the exact information you’re looking for. You’ll learn:

How to really tap into the power of Google, and why Google is the best place to start a search, but never the best place to finish it.

The scoop on vast yet little-known online resources that search engines cannot scour, such as refdesk.com, ipl.org, and Project Gutenberg, among many others.

How to access free government resources (and put your tax dollars to good use).

How to find experts and other people with special knowledge.

How to dig up seemingly confidential information on people and businesses, from public and private companies to nonprofits and international companies.

            Whether researching for a term paper or digging up dirt on an ex, the advice in this book arms you with the sleuthing skills to tackle any mystery.

My Read:

            In this book, the author generously and arduously shares his years of experiences at researching and finding out anything possible in this world. No matter if your searching or researching target is information, knowledge, organization, places, public records, or people you would be able to find some links, websites, books, and places to shed some light and hunt down what you are looking for.

            The chapter that benefits me the most is the chapter on the Google “Advanced Search” template. There is a two-step process using the “Advanced Search:” first, ask a better question; second, a person will need to reduce the number of web pages that Google consults to create your hit list by using the filter tools to exclude things you don’t need to see. (page 42)

Syntax/ Filter tools include using symbols like (examples taken from the book)

-quotation marks (“ “) to precise, literal matches to your search words. i.e. “database” “interest rates”

-minus sigh (-): to help disambiguate results. i.e. “Avatar” –movie

-pipe symbol (|): to have one or more of these words. i.e. “digital SLR” “Nikno”|”Canon”|”Leica”

-asterisk (*): to act as a wild card

Going All In (page 48-49)

            Inurl:Chevrolet    allinurl:felony defense

            Intitle:Longfellow     allintitle:Jackson snakes plane

            Inanchor:combustion_engine     allintext:bedbugs remedy

Web Filters

            Let’s use the examples the author has in the book to teach us how to use the filters to narrow our search results.

Domain and site searching: 

“diabetes” site:.gov

“admissions” “Yale” site: .edu-site.com(finds Yale University, not Yale Locks)

Searching a specific website:

            “necklace” site:tiffanys.com

            “tuition” “in-state” site:oregonstate.edu

File type:

            “Roe v Wade” filetype:pdf

            “SuperBowl winners” filetype:xls

Numeric range:

            “car” “used” $5000..$8000

Cache: To see what a web page looked like one session before the current one, click on the link labeled “cached” in the result list.

Google Collections

Google Alert: www.google.com/alerts

Google Books: http://books.google.com

Google Finance: http://finance.google.com

Google Groups: http://groups.google.com

Google Guide: www.googleguide.com

Google News: http://news.google.com

Google +: https://plus.google.com

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com

iGoogle: www.igoogle.com

            All is about Connection!

In the last chapter the author wraps it up stating: Regardless of what new wonders technology may bring us next, one thing will always be true about research: The process of finding things out means making connections. Ultimately the secret to knowing how to find out anything means learning how to connect with people. Exactly how you do it up to you. (page 241-243)

            Of course the best thing to do is to practice, practice and practice.