Google Before You Leap!!

I found a few differences between search engines (Google & Yahoo) and library data bases (CUNY & NY Public Library). First off, the library data bases returned far less results then the search engines did. At this stage in our research that’s a good thing but, this lack of results could be very limiting and i’ll that explain in a moment. The library’s data was also subdivided into several data bases which had to be search separately for example; books, journals, e-books, video, newspapers, ect. I found the journals particularly difficult to navigate unless you knew the name of the journal that you want to search. Which brings me to a point, I found the library data bases extremely useful at finding new sources of information quickly and without a whole lot of fluff in-between but that only because I had a good idea of where to look and what to look for. When I first started researching my topic, cyber bullying, I didn’t realize that it would be addressed extensively in educational and psychiatric forums. This information, which I gained from search engines, facilitated my navigation of the data bases. Search engines tend to throw everything at you all at once, books, news articles, online content, even journals. A lot of it is garbage but you can get a pretty good idea of where in the hierarchy of information you are by going through some of the links.( thanks Badke) Knowing where you are is the first step in knowing where you need to go. So in short, if you know very little about a subject, Google before you leap into a data base.