SEARCHING THE INTERNET

FINDING

SAVING

USING

FOCUS OF THIS OUTLINE

This is a brief outline of helpful ideas and tips based on 10 years of Internet searching and two books (see end of outline). The books use a total of 744 pages to cover searching in depth – obviously these few pages just skim the very surface.
While the ideas here can apply to searching for any type of material – the focus is on labor/union sites and material.
Only tips on how to use the search engine Google (www.google.com) are encluded since (a) this is probably the best and most widely used search engine and (b) space does not permit a discussion of the many other search engines/sites.
IF YOU LOSE this worksheet, you can find it (and print it out) again on the Maine AFL-CIO web site at www.maineaflcio.org Click on “searching the Interent” at the top of the home page.

GENERAL SEARCH TECHNIQUES

Make Full Use of Your “Favorites” Listings

In searching you will frequently run across a useful site that you were unaware existed. Be sure and add it immediately to your “favorites” listing. (Right click mouse on the page>on pop up menu click “add to favorites”> click OK)

Organize your “favorites” listing of sites. (click “favorites” on top toolbar>click “create new folder”> name new folders for such things as “news,” “contracts,” “Social Security,” “Overtime,” “government,” “personal”

When you save a site on your “favorites” list you will see the option “create in<<<” Select which folder you want to place the site in (or at this time, if the site is a new type, create a new holding folder for this and other sites like it). This will help to keep your “favorites” organized and easier to use.

Don’t accept the automatic name of the site. When you save a site in “favorites” the name automatically saves may not mean much to you. For instance if you save the basic Google site it is automatically saved with the name “Google” on your “favorites” list. You can go to the site name box and type in anything you want such as “Google – top net search site” or “Google – my favorite search site” to remind you what the site is all about when you next see it on the “favorites” listing.

Use Desktop Temporary Files

Typically users save hundreds of documents in “my documents” instead of setting up folders and sub-folders to make things easier to find later.

One way around this is to set up temporary folders on your desktop. For instance if you are gathering information related to bargaining a new contract you may wish to have all this information/research/sites etc. in one place. At the bottom left of the screen right click on “start”> left click on explore (this brings up a diagram of all the files on your computer)> scroll on left to top where it says “desktop”> click “desktop”> on top toolbar click “file”> new > folder. A box with “new folder” will pop up and you can in this box type “CONTRACT.” This will place an empty folder called “CONTRACT” on your desktop. When you save contract-related documents, letters, web sites etc. in the future scroll to “desktop” (at the top of the listings), click on it, then click on ‘CONTRACT” to save the material in this folder. In the future when you want your contract materials, just click on this folder right from your computer desktop.

CAUTION : If you delete this desktop folder everything in it will also be deleted. You can also move/copy/save this folder just by right clicking on it and following the menu which pops up.

Saving Entire Web Pages

Useful web pages can be saved exactly as they appear on the Internet. When you are at a page you want to save> click on “file” at the left of the top toolbar> click on “save as”> scroll to where you want to save the page> click “save.” This saves the page complete in HTML language. When you go to find it later you want to be sure that the box you are using to find things in any file at the bottom reads “all files” and not just “Word” files or you will not see the HTML web page files listed.

Searching Within Web Sites

If may be working on a contract and you bring up a model contract from another state. It is a long document and you are only interested in the part related to HMOs. With your cursor in the document you can hold down the “control” key and hit the letter “F.” A “find and replace” box will pop up. Type HMO (or Health Maintenance Organization) into the box and click “find.” The screen will go to and highlight the “first occurance” of whatever you have typed in. You can click and go to the next occurance.

NOTE: The above can be used to find anything in any document on your screen. It also has a “replace” tab that allows you to replace anything with something else. For instance: if in your draft contract you have spelled something wrong throughout the contract, you can enter the misspelled word in the “find” box, enter the correct spelling in the “replace with” box and click “replace.” It will find each misspelling one at a time to be replaced – or give you the option of replacing all the misspellings at once.

Finding Material on a Web Site

The most obvious way is to type in what you are looking for in the search box – if the site has a search box.

You can also use the “find” method above to search only the web page you are on.

If the site has a “site index” “site map” or something similar (this link is often not easy to find on the home page – on the AFL-CIO national home page, for instance, it is in small type at the very bottom of the page. This brings up an outline of all the pages on the site and is useful because you can quickly scroll down to find the type of material you are looking for.

You can also use Google to search an entire web site. Go to www.google.com and at the top far right click on “more.” On this screen at the left click on “downloads.” At the far left list click on “Google downloads.” On the download page click on “Google toolbar” at the top left. This will load a permanent Google search box to the left of your browser toolbar. No matter where you are on the Internet you can type in something and Google will search for it.

This is particularly handy to find related material when you are on the web. Say, for instance, that you are reading a news story that mentions a recent study with information you want but no Internet links to the study or the organization that did the study. You can select/highlight the name of the study (or the organization) > copy > paste it into the empty Google box at the top of the screen and Google will find it (or the organization web site) for you.

To the immediate right of the Google search box it says “search web.” Farther to the right it says “search site.” If your browser is on a certain site and you want to search it to find something > enter what you are looking for in the Google box > click “search site” and Google will find all the occurances of the term on that site. For instance: if you are one the Maine AFL-CIO web site (www.maineaflcio.org) and are looking for information on Social Security – type “Social Security” into the Google box > click “search site” and links to all mentions of Social Security on our site will pop up.

Types of Web Sites

There are basically (functionally) three types of web sites:

STATIC sites that are seldom changed but can be valuable much as a dictionary may not be used often but is still valuable.
DYNAMIC sites that are updated often – sometimes daily (such as the New York Times and other news sites.
GATEWAY sites that contain links to dozens, hundreds (sometimes thousands) of other sites related to particular subject material. These are particularly valuable to bookmark as they help you get to other sites.

Some sites combine two or more of the above elements. The national AFL-CIO site (www.aflcio.org) for instance is updated very often, contains recent news and also basic fact sheets and links to all other affiliated unions. The Maine AFL-CIO site (www.maineaflcio.org) has a daily posting of labor news from around the nation, pages of national, Maine and New England union site links, and (under “Net Search” on the left of the home page) links to search pages about:

Research Organizations and Sites

Research Libraries

U.S. Department of Labor

New York Times Reporter Net Search Links

News Links & Sites

Each of the above is a page of sites (with descriptions of the sites and their value) that can be used to find specific material.

Content of Sites

In terms of content (not format/updating) there are thousands of different types of sites however the following categories may be most useful:

Labor Libraries

Government Sites

Labor Union Sites
Labor Movement Sites

Liberal Labor Oriented Research Organizations

News Sites

Labor Libraries/Archives

Go to www.google.com and enter the separate words university labor libraries archives

and you will get links to 1,400,000 such sites (see sample below). The top universities such as California, New York, Michigan etc. have some of the best material:
|
The Institute of Industrial Relations Library, UC Berkeley
... Library (IIRL) is an Affiliated Library of the ... research institute located at the
University of California ... programs that focus on labor-management cooperation. ...
www.lib.berkeley.edu/IIRL/ - 28k - Feb 25, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

NYU Libraries | Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
The Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University
form a unique, internationally-known center for scholarly research on Labor and ...
www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/ - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

J. Paul Leonard Library: Labor Archives & Research Center
J. Paul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University
Labor Archives & Research Center. ...
www.library.sfsu.edu/special/larc.html - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

Michigan State University Libraries - Labor & Industrial Relations ...
... with access to the rest of the University Libraries’ system ... and administered by the
School of Labor and Industrial Relations and the MSU Libraries. ...
www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/lir/ - 9k - Feb 25, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

Government Sites (and government info)

For federal, state, local, county and all government links (the top gateway site for government):
http://www.firstgov.gov/

For state, local and county government sites nationwide:

http://www.statelocalgov.net/

For the Maine State Government site:
http://www.maine.gov/portal/government/

Government, campaign spending, candidates, voting records (non-partisan site)
http://www.vote-smart.org/

Labor Unions

All unions affiliated with the national AFL-CIO:

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/unions/

All affiliated unions, other unions, New England Unions, Maine Unions
www.maineaflcio.org (click on “Unions” at top left of home page)

Labor Movement Sites

Labor portals and labor support organizations
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~iir/library/webguides/unionsgd.html#portal

Labor links and sources
http://www.labornet.org/links.htm

Or type “labor movement” into Google and get links to 6,400,000 labor related sites.

Liberal Labor Research Organizations

Probably the most useful is the Economic Policy Institute in Washington that works closely with the national AFL-CIO and produces many in-depth studies of labor issues:
http://www.epinet.org/
They also put out a series of e-mail reports on studies from other institutions that you can sign up for at:

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/signup

You can also type in the separate words labor research organizations institutes in Google and you will get more than 1,000,000 listings (not all liberal or worker oriented)

News Sites

This is a page on the Maine AFL-CIO web site (www.maineaflcio.org) that lists some eleven different major (largely gateway format type) sites that enable you to contact all types of media anywhere in the United States (including Maine, write letters to the editor, read labor “blogs” and much more – including the New York Times “political navigation” site with dozens of links and the New York Times site that they developed to help their own reporters use the Internet and find material.
http://www.maineaflcio.org/news%20links%20&%20sites.htm

Or you can go directly to the New York Times site – a great gateway for both news and searching with a very brief description of what you will get at each listed web site:

http://tech.nytimes.com/top/news/technology/cybertimesnavigator/index.html/