A blog about search, search skills, teaching search, learning how to search, learning how to use Google effectively, learning how to do research. It also covers a good deal of sensemaking and information foraging.

Republished with permission from SearchReSearch
February 27, 2020
A pair of radio interviews! (February 2020)
The other day I was interviewed on the radio... But because we live in a world of streaming media, you can listen to the whole conversation anytime you'd like.  In fact, I was interviewed twice.  Once by radio host Bob Laughton on t...
February 19, 2020
Answer: What is Bernard singing about?
Still enchanted...  ... even though Ranz des Vaches has been an earworm for this week.  Recall that I found this YouTube video with the song “Ranz des Vaches” as sung by Bernard Romanens. Bernard Romanens singing&nbsp...
February 11, 2020
Fluff filters, and why you want to read with them turned on
You can simply read a page,... or you can READ a page with some intelligence.  One of the important skills I teach in my search classes is Reading through the fluff.  Or, in a catchier turn of phrase, reading with a Fluff Filte...
February 7, 2020
Answer: Where is this place? Where do the people live?
A little out of sequence... ... but with this post, we'll get back on track.  Recall what this Challenge was: Flying back to the US from Europe I looked out the window and saw a few islands glinting greenly on the  sea.  W...
February 5, 2020
Answer: How can I find this old song?
I didn't realize until now... ... that I'd accidentally gotten off by one week.  I SHOULD have answered the previous Challenge last Wednesday rather than written a new Challenge. But I woke up last Wednesday morning with that question ("...
January 29, 2020
SearchResearch Challenge (1/29/20): How can I find this old song?
Lyrics aren't always intelligible... ... and I don't mean just punk songs with screaming lead singers or hip-hop artists and with obscure terms that I don't quite get.  I'll sometimes think of a song and somehow get the lyrics a little w...
January 24, 2020
Dataset Search is out of Beta!
At long last... ... Google's Dataset search tool is now out of Beta and ready for your consideration.  You can use it to find open-access datasets.  Just search on the topic of interest and you'll see a list of results on the left-s...
January 21, 2020
Answer: Mysterious rainbows and fossils in the floor?
I should have known....  .... that this SRS Challenge was more complicated than I'd expected.   I've been working on it for the past week!  As I wrote 2 weeks ago... Rainbows are fairly straightforward.  Here's a...
January 3, 2020
Answer: Difficult to find?
I'm often surprised... ... when a Search Challenge turns out to be unexpectedly difficult.  Alas, this happens more often than I'd like.  You'd expect that by now I'd have a good sense for what makes a SearchResearch question easy or har...
December 18, 2019
SearchResearch Challenge (12/18/19): Difficult to find?
In some sense... ... this blog is all about documents that are difficult to find.  We search for articles about life deep underground, or rivers in Spain, or sex ratios of different animals.  But sometimes we need to find A SPECIFIC...

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