Metasearch engines

[Else Paeglis]

Sheryl Dwinell wrote:
 > Hi all:
 > I'm taking a bit of an informal poll to see who likes metasearch
 > engines and which ones you like best.

I am an Internet trainer for RMIT Libraries in Australia. I have a
"Finding Internet Resources" course which looks at a variety of finding
tools on the internet. I do mention meta-engines and have a few pages 
in my manual on them but when I teach searching I compare a few of the
single ones. I recommend metas when a search is fairly simple to
structure (no boolean nesting, ands, ors, nears and nots needed) and
when there is not likely to be a real lot of information on that topic
on the net.
My current favourite is Dogpile (Yes they have a sense of humor!) at
http://www.dogpile.com because it is customisable. You can specify which
engines you want searched and in what order. The information is saved 
for you via a cookie system. It searches them in groups and you can also
specify how long you are willing to wait for a response.
 Cheers,


-- 
Else Paeglis
Internet Unit Manager, RMIT Libraries
GPO Box 2476V
Melbourne, Vic, 3001
& Internet Training Institute
http://iti.com.au
Ph:  61 3 9660 3312
Fax: 61 3 9663 3047
mailto:elsep at iti.com.au