It may be that you do not even remember a time when people found materials by sorting through drawers full of identical cards that listed the books and other resources available in their library. No matter how computer phobic a person may be, most agree that computer search engines and library tools are a big improvement on card catalogues. There are two primary types of computer search engines you will use to find evidence that resides in "real world" books, documents, and periodicals:

Library Specific Search Engines

Your library almost certainly has a digital version of the traditional card catalogue. This is a unique sort of search engine that takes the keywords or categories you provide it with and looks for matches within the library's collection. However, the basic commands and strategies discussed elsewhere on this site still apply.

Different libraries use slightly different search engines, but nearly all of them are easily accesible through their university's home page. If you have not previously, check your own institution's website for library resources.

Most library websites and search engines contain fairly detailed instructions and assistance. The University of Washington's library pages are a good example of this. Commonly, they offer you several ways of locating materials you need:

• Author: If you know you need materials written by a particular author, library search engines will search for materials based on the names you type in.

• Title: Similarly, if you know the title of a work, library search engines can tell you quite easily whether or not it is available.

• Keywords: Unfortunately, most of us are in the dark when gathering evidence and do not know the names of authors or titles of works. Consequently, library search engines offer keyword based searches that respond to basic search commands and strategies.

Your library's web page should contain additional instructions and pointers that help your search. If you are having difficulty, do your work at a computer in the library and ask the assistance of a librarian.

Non Library Specific Search Engines

Researchers need to do exhaustive, comprehensive searches often leads them to look for materials that may not even exist in their library. There are numerous online engines that search different sets of published material independent of libraries. For example, Medline is a search engine devoted primarily to resources for students and practioners of medicine.

The difficulty with these engines is that they are rarely free. However, your university should hold licenses to several of them. Refer to your library's web page to see which ones. These search engines can be extremely valuable to you because many are tailored to certain types of information like medicine, government documents, current periodicals, and scholarly publications. If you have difficulty locating these engines through your own library, the University of Washington's engine list is a good example, though you will not be able to access the engines themselves if you are not a UW student.

Explore other areas of Evidence:

• Searching
• Locating New Media Sources
• Evaluating Evidence