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Google Tools for Reference

CT Library Consortium - Reference Roundtable

Wed Nov 4, 2009

New Britain (CT) Public Library

Slides from presentation

(paf - update links....)

First Things First!

     Get a Google Account Here

Google Tools

• Google Custom Search
  • LILRC Health Search example
  • RI News
• Google Image Search
  • Image Search - Search by color is new. Select color from menu bar just below the search box.
  • Advanced Image Search
    • Content Type - handy to limit to News Images, clip art, etc.
    • Limit by License type to find images you can safely reuse without copyright infringement.
  • Similar Images - New in Google Labs. Click on "similar images" link below some images to see a selection of images that have a similar color, shape, theme.
  • LIFE Photo Archive - Great archive of photos from LIFE magazine. Browse or search.
    • To search by decade: 1790s 1890s etc.
    • In regular google image search,. limit to LIFE collection with:  source:life
  • Image Labeler - make image search better, add labels to images.
  • Similar Images (google labs)
• Flu Trends
• Google Trends
  • Hot Trends
• Public Data - Population
• Public Data - Unemployment
• Google Squared
• Fusion Tables
• Google Finance
• Google Patents
• Google Scholar
  • Google Scholar search box for your web page
• Google Books
• Google News

• News Timeline - New in Google Labs. Select from many sources: news, blogs, photos, Time, Wikipedia, quotes and more. Select time frame (1800, 1500, 1952, etc.) And frequency: day, week, decade, etc.
  • Oil Pollution
  • Barack Obama Quotes - view by week over the last decade.
  • Meryl Streep - Movies 
• Google Maps
• Google Earth
  • Google Lit Trips - maps and literature

• Google Sets - Enter a few words, Google will try to create a list of similar items. Great for creating wordsearch puzzles. themed crosswords, etc.

More!

• iGoogle
• Google Reader
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs
• Google Groups
• Google Guide Teen Cheat Sheet - quick guide to google search strategies.

Keeping up with Google

Google Reader widget with updates from a bunch of Google blogs.