NOTE:  THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS.  I HAVE COPIED THE SUMMARIES FROM SEVERAL PLACES. I PLAN TO REVAMP THE PAGE SOON.  IF IT ACCIDENTLY GETS ON THE WEB, HERE ARE THE SITES THAT I HAVE TEMPORARILY BORROWED THE MATERIAL FROM:

http://library.rider.edu/scholarly/rlackie/Invisible/Inv_Web.html

Hidden Content on the Web

 

• Librarians' Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/) - This is a "searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 11,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians"...that gives users a "a reliable and efficient guide to described and evaluated Internet resources." LII can also lead you to Invisible Web databases by typing in the broad topic and adding the words: "and databases" (i.e., biology and databases)
   
• FindLaw (http://www.findlaw.com/) - "The world's most popular legal Web site," FindLaw is a "comprehensive set of legal resources on the Internet for lawyers, businesses, students and individuals." To find an annotated list of free databases on many law-related topics, from their main page, click on "Legal Subjects," pick a subject heading, and then look for "Databases" under the Web Guide for that subject.
   
• InfoMine (http://infomine.ucr.edu) - Scholarly Internet Resource Collections from the University of California-Riverside. Some 104,000+ sites are grouped into 12 annotated, indexed categories (databases) for easy retrieval on this site, including a guide to E-Journals.
   
• About.com (http://www.about.com/) - This portal neatly organizes thousands of topics, including Invisible Web, with good news and commentary, too. Try typing "Invisible Web Information" as a phrase in quotes.
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• Invisible Web Searchable Sites

• Direct Search (http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm) - Gary Price, MLIS, of Gary Price Library & Internet Research Consulting, is one of the foremost authorities on invaluable Invisible Web resources and has assembled a massive collection at his site.
   
• Invisibleweb.com (http://www.invisibleweb.com) - A large gateway to the Invisible Web, this "is a high quality, human edited & indexed collection of highly targeted databases..."
   
• CompletePlanet (http://www.completeplanet.com/) - BrightPlanet Corporation's site contains "103,000 searchable databases & specialty search engines." Check out their BrightPlanet FAQs (http://www.brightplanet.com/deepcontent/deep_web_faq.asp), too.

 

Some Invisible Web Databases

Although there are thousands of Invisible Web databases available to us for free on the Web, below I have listed a few of my favorites:

• AnimalSearch (http://animalsearch.net/) - Database for family-safe animal-related sites.
   
• ERIC (http://www.askeric.org/) - AskERIC contains the free, Web-based version of the ERIC Database, the world's largest source of education information, with more than 1 million abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice.
   
• NatureServe Explorer (http://www.natureserve.org/explorer) - Authoritative conservation info. on 50,000+ plants, animals, & ecological communities" in USA & Canada.
   
• Nuclear Explosions Database (http://www.agso.gov.au/databases/20010926_4.jsp) -  Australian Geological Survey Organisation database of nuclear explosions (location, time, & size) around the world since 1945.
   
• On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences  (http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/) - "Type in a series of numbers and this database will complete the sequence and provide the sequence name, along with its mathematical formula, structure, references, and links."
   
• PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) - PubMed provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE citations, including links to sites providing full text articles & related resources. You will also want to explore PubMed Central, an e-archive of full text articles in life sciences journal literature, offering unrestricted access to its contents.
   
• FindArticles.com (http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/PI/index.jhtml) - FindArticles.com is a free, searchable Web archive of almost 500 published magazine and journal titles, 1998 to present. It provides "articles that can be read in their entirety and printed at no cost."  

Search Engines

Some general and specialized search engines, like those listed below, can help you locate specific information or file formats, so I like to go to them first. I do use several search engines for research; however, many of the traditional, general engines do not pick up Adobe PDF files, which comprise a large percentage of the Invisible Web domain. A great site for keeping up-to-date on search engines is Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/). Let's explore certain sections of that and two general search engines that now allow us to find some Invisible Web data. Immediately below are a few interesting specialized search engine services/sites.

• Singingfish (http://www.singingfish.com) - Singingfish 's "technology allows existing search engines, portals, destination sites--any Web site at all--to deliver superior multimedia search results for those seeking streaming audio or video files from across the web."
   
• Google News (http://news.google.com/) - This entirely automated (no Google editors) version scours the Web every 15 minutes to capture news from 4,500+ sources. For details, see Editor & Publisher's Google news article. Note: Moreover's news feeds, AllTheWeb's News Search, and Yahoo!'s Full Coverage are also impressive news-aggregating services.
   
• UFOSeek (http://www.ufoseek.com/) - "Yes, Mulder, the truth is really, um, out there, and you can find it using this paranormal and UFO search engine database."
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• Search Engines

We know that information on some sites is presented in formats other than static HTML, which gives search engines a problem. Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) is an example of this. If HTML text that accompanies the PDF file describes the file well, you may find the site, but if the site provides unhelpful headings or titles, then the file is pretty much "invisible." This is also true for Flash files, for instance. Fortunately for us, a few general search engines are more easily bringing some PDF, Flash, and other non-HTML files to our desktops.

• Google (http://www.google.com/) - Google is a search engine that indexes records based on their popularity; i.e., the degree to which other popular pages refer to a page. Google also allows you to go to the page as it is currently on the Web, or go to a cached copy Google stored when it retrieved the page (nice when the current page won't connect). In addition, Google allows you to find those Invisible Web documents: PDF files. You can also view them in ASCII-text (nice when you have a slow connection or the PDF is so large that you don't want to wait to display). From Google's Advanced Search, you will see that in addition to allowing you to limit your search to finding PDF files, you can now limit or exclude other file formats, such as Adobe Postscript; Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint; & Rich Text formats.
   
• AlltheWeb (FAST) (http://www.alltheweb.com/) - A big competitor of Google, AlltheWeb now locates Word and PDF files. However, until AlltheWeb, no general search engine was indexing text in Macromedia Flash files. This format is becoming very popular among Web site designers who want "to go beyond the limitations of traditional HTML. It allows you to add dramatic animations, multimedia presentations and advanced menu systems" (http://www.searchengineethics.com/headlines/02/09-alltheweb1.htm).

 

	This page created 05/14/03
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