Thanks re:metasearch engines

[Sheryl Dwinell]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my query about the use of metasearch
engines.  Metacrawler seems to enjoy a bit more popularity than some
others, but not overwhelmingly. Dogpile (love the name) was another
favorite. There were a few complaints about Savvy Search being inaccessible
too often. This is something I've discovered as well. I've tried a few
times in classes to show its use, but never seem to be able to get in
during the day, so I've dropped it. Several people commented that they
didn't think meta search engines were worth using since you typically
couldn't control many search options and the results were often worse than
using a single engine.  The most common response was that metasearch
engines were interesting and some did show them when they taught classes on
using the Net, but didn't find them appreciably more useful than using
single search engines.

Thanks again.

Sheryl Dwinell
Cataloger/Database Management Librarian
Memorial Library, Marquette University
P.O. Box 3141
Milwaukee, WI 53201-3141
dwinells at vms.csd.mu.edu
414-288-3542