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<p>I've been intrigued by the power and potential of online searching since I was a graduate student in librarianship at Columbia University in the early 1970's. At that time, I learned to use MEDLINE (the search system of the National Library of Medicine), which had recently been developed.</p> <p>Of course, those were the horse and buggy days of online searching. I used a "dumb terminal" (similar to a teletype machine) with a modem speed of 700 bps (as opposed to today's average 28,800 bps). When I began a search, I was looking at a blank page, except for the command "B:?".</p> <p>Today's Internet searchers face quite a different situation. Their screens are filled with choices, information, and advice. It's hard for the typical untrained searcher to know which direction to take on a particular search.</p> <p>My goal is to help people find exactly what they're looking for by pointing out and evaluating the most useful search engines for various purposes, and explaining how they can best be searched. I'll also show how to use some of the most common search syntax and Boolean operators.</p> <p>Getting back to me--I worked as a librarian for several years, and then started my own business as an information broker. Since most of the work I did for clients involved DIALOG and NEXIS searches, I became an experienced online searcher. In the mid-1980's, I contributed many "how to" articles to <i>Dowline</i> (the magazine of Dow Jones News Retrieval), and wrote about the online industry for the <i>New York Post</i> and <i>Online Access</i>. In addition, I taught an adult education course introducing people to online searching.</p> <p>Eventually, I switched to full-time writing as a career, but continued to do occasional online searches for myself, friends and family, and a few clients. When I finally got a pentium computer in 1996, I became acquainted with the Internet. I was immediately hooked.</p> <p>I've been freelance writer, editor and researcher since 1991. I also do fee-based web searches. I welcome your questions, ideas, comments, and suggestions about my articles and about search engines in general.</p>