DAM Blog: Google - Tips, Tricks and Tidbits

Google hosted a session on Monday 6/4/07 which was so popular they immediately expanded the room. Jodi Healy talked about some of Google's background and mission. She said it would take 300 years for Google to organize all of the information available in the world today.

There recently has been an interface change - refered to as Universal Search - links/tabs are on the top left. The vertical searches will become more and more integrated.

Tips & Tricks

"Advanced Search" can be used to refine your search

"-" excludes words

"~" similar words

"site:" site specific

"linl:" linked pages

"weather denver, co" gives you a weather report

"13 euros in usd" does currency conversion

"24 degrees c in f" will convert temperatures

More fun tricks - www.google.com/help/features.html

Translate text or a website: translate.google.com

"Hot Trends" used to be their Zeitgeist - what are people searching right now?

Customized Search Engine (CSE) to embed in your website - www.google.com/coop

Book Search - books.google.com - Linked to WorldCat - some fulltext is available

Patent Search - www.google.com/patents

News Archive Search - news.google.com/archivesearch

News Alerts - www.google.com/support/news

And now some fun stuff - the clean Google interface down to the number of characters on the screen is carefully monitored. You can set up your own home site at iGoogle.com. And, to see all of those fun Google logos done for holidays go to www.google.com/holidaylogos.html. An employee has the job of designing these and carefully picking out the holidays on top of his regular Google job. Finally, you can read about even more tips and tricks at librariancentral.blogspot.com/