Finding Customized Search Engines on Law

People can use the Google Coop tool to create a custom search engine that will search only the sites or subsites specified. It is also possible to insert code for the custom search engine on any website.

According to the Google Operating System blog, Google has now come up with a structured search engine that only searches the most popular custom search engines based on Google Coop.

In other words, a search engine to find custom search engines. The search can be limited in many ways: by keywords, language, the number of sites covered, popular queries, etc.

For example, I did a simple search for custom search engines that index legal research guides and sites. I applied no limits in terms of number of sites, additional query terms, etc.

This could be a useful discovery tool.

Earlier Library Boy posts on customized searching include:

• New Search Engine for Library Blogs (October 29, 2006): "LisZen is a new customized search engine that searches the content of more than 500 library-related blogs."
• Customized Search for Intergovernmental Organizations (November 16, 2006): "The people at Indiana University Libraries in Bloomington, Indiana have developed customized search tools for IGOs - intergovernmental organizations like the World Bank, the European Union and the UN."
• Blawg-Finding Tools (November 22, 2006): "Well, the Law Dawg Blawg, created by law librarians at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, describes 'New Tools for Finding Blawgs' in a post from November 18, 2006.The post describes 2 finding aids: the refurbished blawg.com site (...) and the search engine BlawgSearch." The search engine on blawg.com is based on the Google custom search technology.
• Customized Search For French Legal Material (December 15, 2006): "More and more libraries and individuals have been using tools such as Google Coop to build customized topical collections of searchable online material.The French blawg Doc en Vrac has a recent item about a number of searchable collections, including French-language blogs and legal material from France, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec."
• Customized Search Tool for Reference Sites (January 25, 2007): "Bill Drew of the Morrisville State College Library has created a custom search engine that aggregates content from more than 200 reference sites.The sites are those included in the 1999-2006 annual lists issued by the Best of Free Reference Web Sites Committee of the (...) American Library Association... "
• New Legal Research Engine (February 2, 2007): "The Cornell University Law Library has launched its new Legal Research Engine that helps users find research guides on legal topics from authoritative sources. Authoritative as in Harvard Law, Georgetown, Cornell, Duke, New York University... the top U.S. sources anyway. It is based on the Google Custom Search Engine technology I have discussed in earlier Library Boy posts..."
• Customized Search Engine for Canadian Government Documents (February 7, 2007): "David Sharp, the Government Publications Librarian at the Maps, Data and Government Information Centre at Carleton University in Ottawa, has recently developed a customized search tool for Canadian government documents... For now, it searches on the federal level, including select crown corporations, the provincial and territorial level; as well, it searches 80 municipal sites from across Canada."
• Customized Search Engine For U.S. Law School Websites (March 1, 2007): "John Doyle, who works at the Washington & Lee Law School Library has developed a custom search engine for Searching U.S. Law School Websites."
• New Customized Search Tools for Canadian Legal Material (March 4, 2007): "I have come up with 2 search tools for Canadian legal material. Canadian Law School Websites: this searches the websites of all Canadian law schools in all provinces (...) Legal Research / Recherche juridique: this searches through the legal research guides and tutorials of Canadian law schools and their libraries."