All posts by Karen Blakeman

I have worked in the information profession for over twenty years and have been a freelance consultant since 1989. My company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Prior to setting up RBA I worked at the Colindale Central Public Health Laboratory, and then spent ten years in the Pharmaceutical and Health Care industry before moving to the International management consultancy group Strategic Planning Associates. I edit and publish an electronic newsletter called Tales from the Terminal Room. Other publications include Search Strategies for the Internet. I am a Fellow of CILIP: The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, a member of the UK eInformation Group (UKeiG).

Evaluated listings and subject guides from people who know the sectors are the quickest way to home in on good quality sources of information. The British Library Business and IP Centre (BIPC) has, for a long time, had a wiki at http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com/Industries listing web-based resources on a number of industries. These have been expanded into a very useful series of 30 PDF guides at http://www.bl.uk/bipc/dbandpubs/Industry%20guides/industry.html highlighting relevant industry directories, databases, publications and websites.

British Library Business & IP Centre Industry Guides

All of the guides show when they were last updated and the name of the person who has edited the guide. Not all of the resources are freely available on the web but you can access the information for free in the Business & IP Centre at the British Library, St Pancras. You will need a Reader Pass; details on how to obtain one can be found at http://www.bl.uk/bipc/visitus/howtouse/index.html.

The resources are split into Directories, Business Advice Sources, Market Research and Statistics, Trade Magazines and Newsletters, and Internet Resources. Even if you cannot make it to the BIPC to access the publications these guides are valuable pointers to the key sources of information on industry sectors. Highly recommended.

Techie Stuff, telecommunications

A bit of telecoms history off to recycling

May 6, 2012 Karen Blakeman 2 Comments

This time I really am going to do it. About 4 years ago I had a grand clear-out of my office and decided that my archive of telecoms software and manuals had to go. I offered them to anyone who was interested and a few items were snapped up. The rest are still sitting here in a box and I am offering them again to anyone who might be interested for historical reasons, research or whatever. You do not have to take the whole lot. Let me know if you are interested. Closing date is 28th May 2012 when they are definitely off to recycling.

Database/information provider specific

Mercury Business Intelligence (MBI) User Guide Version 1.1. A5 ring binder
MBI Launcher v 1.2 (Windows) 3.5″ disk + hardcopy installation guide.

FT Profile freeway user manual (Windows 3) + 3.5″ disk

DialogLink for Windows Operating Systems Version 2.0 1993
User’s Guide + 3.5″ disk

Radio-Suisse DataMail Guide 1991-1992 (Guide to setting up and using DataStar’s online DataMail service)

General telecomms software

Odyssey User Manual spiral bound + 3.5″ disk. 1990
Odyssey for Windows A5 User manual + 3.5″ disk 1995

Crosstalk for Windows User’s Guide + Crosstalk for Windows CASL Programmer’s Guide 3X 3.5″ disks, 3x 5.25″ disks. 1992

Deputy User Guide. A5 ring binder + 3.5″ diskette 1992, version 3.04

Procomm Plus User Manual + Aspect Script Language Reference Manual + 2x 3.5″ disks, 3 x 5.25″ disks. 1991.

Procomm Plus for Windows User Manual (EC Version) + Windows Aspect Script Language (EC Version) + 3 x 3.5″ disks, 3 x 5.25″ disks. 1992

Procomm Plus Very Connected 3.0 user guide + CD

Hayes Smartcom for Windows 1993:

Read Me First!
User’s Guide
Quick Reference
Editor Reference
SCOPE for Windows Technical Reference
Communications Reference
4x 3.5″ disks
4x 5.25″ disks

Sage Chit-Chat 2.6 for IBM PC/XT
Boxed set of user manual, installation notes, 3.5″ disk, 5.25″ disk

QuickLink II Fax and telecommunications Windows & DOS 1993. User manual + 3.5″ disk

QuickLink Message Center: voice, fax & telecommunication. Windows. 1993. User manual + 3.5″ disk

Google, workshops

Workshop: Getting the best out of Google (Reading)

April 26, 2012 Karen Blakeman

Having problems with Google? Fed up with it ignoring your search terms and giving you something completely different? Or confused by irrelevant postings from complete strangers appearing in your results? Personalisation, localisation, social networks and semantic search are all being used by Google in an attempt to “enhance” your results but it can go horribly wrong. Austria suddenly becomes Australia and Google decides that buttercups are really goats! There are many tricks that we can use to make Google return better results and this workshop will look in detail at what is available.

Topics will include:

how Google works – what Google tells us and what we have to guess
recent developments and their impact on search results
how Google customises your results and can you stop it?
how to focus your search and control Google
Google’s specialist tools and databases
what Google is good at and when you should consider alternatives

You will have ample opportunity to experiment and try out the techniques for yourself. Exercises will be provided to help you test out the search features but you are free to explore and try out searches of your own.

This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience. The techniques and approaches covered can be applied to all subject areas.

The workshop leader is Karen Blakeman.

Date: Thursday, 28th June 2012, 9.30 – 16.30
Venue: Agriculture Building, Reading University, Reading, UK
Cost: £150 +VAT (Total £180). A limited number of places for unwaged and students are available; please contact karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk for further details.
Further details: http://www.rba.co.uk/training/Google.htm

Google, Search Engines, Search Strategies, workshops

Forthcoming workshop: Effective online search tools and techniques (Sheffield)

April 23, 2012 Karen Blakeman

If you want to make Google behave or learn about alternative search tools, I am running a workshop for SINTO next week in Sheffield. It is a one day hands-on workshop to be held at Sheffield Hallam University on Tuseday 1st May (10 am – 4 pm).

This workshop will start with how Google works, important changes that are affecting search results, and how to make use of Google search features to improve and focus your search. It will then move on to other options for general web search and specialist tools for different types of information (for example statistics, social media, research) and subject areas. This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience and the techniques covered can be applied to all subject areas.

Cost: SINTO members £80 + £16 VAT= £96. Non-members £110 + £22 VAT = £132

Feel free to contact me if you require further information about the workshop content.

A booking form is available at http://extra.shu.ac.uk/sinto/Events/events.html or you can contact SINTO on Tel 0114 2255740, email sintoenquiry@shu.ac.uk

CILIP, Facebook, Presentations, privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, social media, Twitter

Presentation: Search Turns Social – Resistance is Futile

April 19, 2012 Karen Blakeman

The presentation I gave to CILIP in Hants & Wight yesterday (Search Turns Social – Resistance is Futile) is now available on authorSTREAM at http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/karenblakeman-1392940-search-turns-social-resistance-futile/

It is also available on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/search-turns-social-resistance-is-futile and temporarily on my web site at http://www.rba.co.uk/as/

Search Strategies, workshops

IFEG advanced search presentation now available

April 9, 2012 Karen Blakeman

The presentation on advanced web searching that I gave to the Information for Energy Group on April 3rd, 2012 in London is now available. It can be found on:

authorSTREAM at http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/karenblakeman-1383280-ifeg-20120403/

and

Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/advanced-web-searching-ifeg-3rd-april-2012

If you have problems accessing it on either of those sites it is temporarily available as a PowerPoint file on my web site at http://www.rba.co.uk/as/

Tales From The Terminal Room

Tales from the Terminal Room, Issue no. 100 out now

March 19, 2012 Karen Blakeman

Issue number 100 of Tales from the Terminal Room is now available at http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2012/feb2012.shtml.

This month’s issue includes:

Google personalisation: web history isn’t the only problem
And the next Google killer is….Google!
Top search tips from Google and advanced search workshops
Official companies register for the Ukraine
Twitter Notes

If you are a regular reader of this blog the main articles will not be new to you. Twitter Notes are some of my tweets and retweets that I’ve selected because they contain links to resources or announcements that may be of general interest. I have unshortened the shortened URLs so you have a better idea of where the links are going to and in some cases added extra comments.

Google, Search Strategies

Order matters with Google advanced search commands

March 18, 2012 Karen Blakeman 1 Comment

The great thing about running search workshops is that you have so many people experimenting with advanced commands that someone is bound to spot an anomaly that you haven’t. We’ve become used to seeing different results when changing the order in which we enter keywords but not when using advanced search commands. During one of my workshops we had a couple of people playing around with Google’s allintitle command. This tells Google to look for all of the keywords following allintitle in the title of a document.

The search that was initially used was allintitle:diabetic retinopathy and came back with 277,000 results. Restricting the search to UK academic sites by using allintitle:diabetic retinopathy site:ac.uk reduced the number to about 2,190 and gave sensible results. But changing the order of the commands to site:ac.uk allintitle:diabetic retinopathy gave two very bizarre results:

Both results are from academic sites but the allintitle as a search command seems to have been ignored. The first entry includes intitle, diabetic and retinopathy and the second has allintitle, diabetic and retinal. Using the Verbatim option from the menus on the left hand side of the results page gave us zero!

Next we tried combining allintitle with fieltype:pdf.

allintitle:diabetic retinopathy filetype:pdf

gave us 3490 results of which at least the first 100 were relevant.

Switching the order to :

filetype:pdf allintitle:diabetic retinopathy

gave 495,000 results some of which were relevant but many did not contain all of our terms nor did they contain both diabetic and retinopathy in the title. Google was also looking for variations on our terms.

Using Verbatim on this search gave us zero again.

When we looked at the advanced search screen Google had put everything in the right boxes. If we used the advanced search screen to enter our terms afresh the search worked with Google putting the allintitle command at the start of the search.

Was this a general problem or just with allintitle? We then played around with the intitle command.

intitle:diabetic intitle:retinopathy site:ac.uk – 2220 sensible results (slightly more than our original allintitle search)

site:ac.uk intitle:diabetic intitle:retinopathy – 2220 sensible results identical to those above

intitle:diabetic intitle:retinopathy filetype:pdf – 3480 sensible results

filetype:pdf intitle:diabetic intitle:retinopathy – 3480 sensible results same as previous search

We then tried using a phrase after intitle:

intitle:"diabetic retinopathy" site:ac.uk – 2130 sensible results

site:ac.uk intitle:"diabetic retinopathy" 2130 sensible results identical to previous search

Following a suggestion made by Tamara Thompson of PIBuzz ( http://pibuzz.com/) changing the search slightly to site:ac.uk "intitle:diabetic intitle:retinopathy" gave exactly the same results.

Just to make sure that it wasn’t just us in the UK seeing this I asked fellow members of AIIP (http://www.aiip.org/) to run the original two allintitle searches. They saw exactly the same thing.

Its seems, then, that there is a problem when allintitle is not the first command in a search. The intitle alternatives appear more reliable. If you prefer to use the command line rather than fill in the boxes on the Advanced Search screen remember that order sometimes matters.

Does this affect other combinations of commands? I left it at allintitle and intitle but I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Search Engines, Search Strategies

Use more than Google

March 14, 2012 Karen Blakeman 1 Comment

If you need more evidence – other than me telling you! – that you need more than Google then take a look at The Disruptive Searcher (Sanity checking Google http://disruptivesearcher.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/sanity-checking-google/):

“if I hadn’t searched across more than Google for data on a small, new company that I was asked to research recently, I would have missed out on some very significant information that Google just wasn’t showing me.”

So take a look at Bing (http://www.bing.com/), DuckDuckGo(http://duckduckgo.com/) and Blekko (http://blekko.com/) for starters. The Disruptive Searcher also mentions Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com/), which combines results from Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Karen Blakeman's Blog