How to make Google behave: techniques for better results

 

To book a place on this course, please visit our website: www.ukeig.org.uk or contact Christine Baker: Tel & Fax: 01969 625751, Email: [log in to unmask]

 

Venue: Room LG04, Learning Centre, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham (Google Map of venue location: http://bit.ly/vXl6no)

Date: Wednesday, 8 February, 2012 - 09:30 - 16:30

 

Course Outline: Having problems with Google? Fed up with it ignoring your search terms and giving you something completely different? Or confused by irrelevant tweets from complete strangers appearing in your results? Personalisation, localisation, social networks and semantic search are all being used by Google in an attempt to improve relevance but it can all go horribly wrong. Austria suddenly becomes Australia and Google decides that coots are really lions! Nevertheless, just one really good result in the top five is often enough to persuade us to return to Google again and again. There are many tricks we can use to make Google return better results and this workshop will look in detail at the options that are currently available to us.

 

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 use existing and new features to focus your search and control Google
how and when to use 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 and Karen will be on hand to help and advise you. Exercises are provided to help you test out the search features but you are free to explore and try out searches of your own.

 

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

 

Course Presenter: Karen Blakeman. Karen has worked in the information profession since 1978 and became a freelance consultant in 1989. She provides training and consultancy on social and collaborative web tools, and searching for and managing information resources. After graduating from Birmingham University with a degree in Biological Sciences she worked at the Colindale Central Public Health Laboratory. She then spent ten years in the pharmaceutical industry before moving to the international management consultancy group Strategic Planning Associates. Karen edits and publishes a monthly, electronic newsletter called Tales from the Terminal Room (http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml) and her blog can be found at http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/. She is an Honorary Fellow of CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) and a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP: http://www.aiip.org/).

 

Costs (including lunch and refreshments): UKeiG members £180 + VAT at the current rate; others £220 + VAT at the current rate

 

Booking Form

You can complete a PDF booking form for this course and return it no later than seven days before the course date.

Christine Baker
Piglet Cottage
Redmire
Leyburn
North Yorkshire
DL8 4EH

Tel & Fax: 01969 625751

Email: [log in to unmask]

Cheques should be made payable to UK eInformation Group

 

Online Booking

For online bookings please take note of the Course Booking Reference and complete the Online Event Booking Form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/content/event-booking.