Step 2 - Start with right search engine

It seems logical to assume that best place to start is with largest search engine or directory that you can think off. But do you REALLY want to wade through millions of listings that will come up if you go to Yahoo & type in "disability resources"? It's usually better to look for a search engine that automatically optimizes your results. What this means is that they do most of sorting for you & just give you a short list of sites they feel are MOST RELEVANT to your search request. One I particularly like is Chubba (http://www.chubba.com). Chubba draws its results from several different search engines so you get a nice range of results, but offers you only 10-20 entries that seem most relevant.

Step 3 - Select right keyword

Once you've arrived at search engine you will need to enter your choice of keyword(s) to start your search. This is a critical step -- effectiveness of your search is, in large part, determined by your choice of keyword. Let's look at example I mentioned earlier, 10-year-old with Tourette's Syndrome. If this young man is having trouble at school, you may be interested in finding ideas for academic supports to include in his next Individualized Education Program (IEP). Possible keywords might be:

http://www.ebookmap.net/maps.htm

http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html

At first sight, it appears to be a static, cluttered diagram with multicoloured, overlapping squares. Really, it is an extremely powerfulway of presenting dynamics of emerging e-publishing industry. R2 Consulting has constructed these eBook Industry Maps to "reflect evolving business models among publishers, conversion houses, digital distribution companies, eBook vendors, online retailers, libraries, library vendors, authors, and many others. These maps are 3-dimensionaloffering viewers both a high-level orientation to eBook landscape and an in-depth look at multiple eBook models and partnerships that have formed within each one." Pass your mouse over any of squares and a virtual floodgate opens - a universe of interconnected and hyperlinked names, a detailed atlas of who does what to whom.

eBookMap.net is one example of a relatively novel approach to databases and web indexing. The metaphor of cyber-space comes alive in spatial, two and three dimensional map-like representations of world of knowledge in Cybergeography's online "Atlas". Instead of endless, static and bi-chromatic lists of links - Cybergeography catalogues visual,recombinant vistas with a stunning palette, internal dynamics and an intuitively conveyed sense of inter-relatedness. Hyperlinks are incorporated in topography and topology of these almost-neural maps.

"These maps of Cyberspaces - cybermaps - help us visualise and comprehend new digital landscapes beyond our computer screen, in wires of global communications networks and vast online information resources. The cybermaps, like maps of real-world, help us navigate new information landscapes, as well being objects of aesthetic interest. They have been created by 'cyber-explorers' of many different disciplines, and from all corners of world. Some of maps ... in Atlas of Cyberspaces ... appear familiar, using cartographicconventions of real-world maps, however, many of maps are much more abstract representations of electronic spaces, using new metrics and grids."