OBJECTIVES:

A) Participants will learn the theory of Boolean Logic.
B) Participants will be able to apply their knowledge of Boolean logic to searching the Internet.

INTRODUCTION AND EXPECTATIONS

PART 1 - Theory

A) Concept or Facet Analysis - Handout and Exercise

B) Boolean Logic and operators - Demonstration and Handout

AND, OR, NOT

D) Other search strategy concepts

Default
Order of Operations
Nesting (parenthetical syntax)
Phrase searching
Truncation
Wildcard
Proximity searching
Index searching
Find in page  (Control F)

• True Boolean - use of operators and nesting.

         Generally used in formal proprietary databases such as OPACs or periodical databases (e.g. Mid-York
        WebCatalog, Proquest, Dialog, EBSCO). Sometimes used as advanced feature of search engines (AltaVista
        Advanced).

• Implied Boolean - use of plus sign (+), minus sign (-), and quotation marks (" ") to imply boolean operators

and phrase searching.
        Used in most Internet search engines and metasearch engines.

        Google            http://www.google.com
        AltaVista       http://www.altavista.com
        Teoma            http://www.teoma.com
        Wisenut         http://www.wisenut.com

• Pull-down menus - Use such expressions as "any of the terms", "all of the terms" "none of the terms"

        Used in both formal proprietary databases and some search engines (mostly as advanced features of either)

Boolean Is Cool
Boolean Worksheet
Concept Analysis Worksheet
Exercises

Gillian Westera's Page
http://lisweb.curtin.edu.au/staff/gwpersonal/compare.html
Preparing Your Search and Search Engine Pages
http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/prepare.html
Using True Boolean and Implied Boolean when searching the Internet
http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/engines.html

PART III - Evaluation