Searching the Deep Web

By Patricia Jordan

The Deep Web is estimated to be 500 times larger than the surface web. It contains information that is buried within databases on dynamically generated websites. This untapped information is not available on static web pages and cannot be retrieved by traditional search engines like Yahoo! and Google. The crawler programs used by Yahoo! and Google access information on the surface web, but are unable to penetrate databases that are designed to respond to specific typed queries. Those pages do not exist until they are created dynamically from a specific search.



Here are a few websites that will assist you to search the Deep Web.

• ArchivesCanada.ca is a gateway to archival resources found in more than 800 repositories across Canada.
• CollectionsCanada.gc.ca is an online resource containing the collections and services of Library and Archives Canada.
• CompletePlanet.com provides access to more than 70,000 searchable databases and specialty search engines.
• HeinOnline.org provides content that spans multiple library collections with more than 50 million pages of research material available to subscribers in more than 150 countries.
• LibrarySpot.com contains a collection of databases, online libraries, references and other resources.
• OSTI uses federated searching on a cascading suite of products: Worldwidescience.org for worldwide science information, Science.gov for US federal science and ScienceAccelerator.gov which unifies OSTIs web products.
• WorldCat.org connects to the collections and services of more than 10,000 libraries.
• The World Digital Library (wdl.org/en provides free access in multilingual format to significant materials from countries and cultures worldwide.