II. Web Browsers

There are a variety of web browsers, or programs that help you access sites on the Web. Internet Explorer, Netscape, and the America Online (AOL) start page are the ones in most widespread use. We won’t be covering AOL today, since it is not used for Internet access in the library. The library does, however, own books about using AOL.

To start a web browser program, double-click (click gently but quickly twice) with your left mouse button on the icon, or picture, for the program you wish to use. The Netscape icon looks like a capital “n.” The Internet Explorer icon looks like a small “e.” Your instructor will let you know which one he/she would like you to use today.


III. Clicking on Links

A home page is the first web page that appears in the browser when you visit a web site. All other web pages in the web site are usually linked to the home page.

The first web page that will appear when you start Internet Explorer or Netscape will be the library’s home page within the library. It is accessible only in the library building.

The main focus of this class, though, will be the library’s public home page: http://www.gailborden.info/. This web page is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection.


Now, let’s learn how to move there by clicking on a link.

A link is usually blue and underlined, like this: Home Page. Sometimes, a picture can be a link. How can you tell if a word or picture is a link? If you move your mouse over a link, the mouse arrow will change to the shape of a hand, like this:


A note about using the mouse: It’s not very smart, and you can’t move it and click on something at the same time. So, to move to another web page with your mouse, you’ll want to move the mouse pointer arrow on top of what you want to click on, then hold it steady as you lightly click once on the left mouse button.

Let’s practice this now. Click on the “Home Page” link in the middle left of the screen. This will take you to the library’s public home page: http://www.gailborden.info/.

See how easy that was? That’s the most difficult skill to learn about using the Internet: pointing and clicking.


IV. Moving Around in a Web Page

The library’s public home page offers access to the library catalog (the database for finding out which materials Gail Borden owns), electronic resources (access to articles, auto repair information, genealogy resources, etc.), access to online help with reference questions, and general information about the library and library events.

To see everything this page has to offer, you will want to use the scroll bar on the screen, the scroll wheel on the mouse, and/or the direction arrows on your keyboard to move down the screen.

The scroll bar is the thin gray bar on the right side of the web page. It has arrows on its top and bottom. To move down quickly, click on the slide bar button right underneath the top arrow with your left mouse button, and hold it down while you move the mouse in a downward motion. To move more slowly, you can click directly on the down arrow. Moving the slide bar button in an upward motion, or clicking on the up arrow, will move you back up.

If the web page is too wide to fit on the screen, a side-to-side scroll bar will also appear at the bottom of the web page.

The scroll wheel on the mouse is the small gray piece of rubber between the left and right mouse buttons. To use it to navigate up or down, first click with your left mouse button in an area of the web page in which you wish to move down (or up) that does not have a link. Then, you can use the scroll wheel to move up or down.

Your final option to move around in a web page is to use the arrow keys to the right of the “Shift” key on the right side of your keyboard. After you click with your left mouse button in an area of the web page in which you wish to move down (or up) that does not have a link, you may use these keyboard arrows to move around in a web page.

Please practice these methods of moving around within a web page now.

V. Browser Buttons

Next, let’s discuss how to use the buttons at the top of the screen:

These are called browser buttons. The most important ones are:


Back: moves your browser back to the web page you just visited.

Forward: moves your browser forward to a page you left when you clicked on the “Back” button.

Stop: halts the loading of a web page. This is useful when a page is taking too long to load. Often, clicking the “Stop” button and then the “Reload” or “Refresh” button will bring up the page in a shorter amount of time.

Reload/Refresh: re-requests the current web page and displays it on the screen. This is good for updating sports scores, news headlines, and stock market info.

Home: moves your browser to the web page designated as the home page (start page) on that computer. In Netscape, the “Home” button is a smaller picture of a house that appears below the other browser buttons.

Try using the “Back” and “Forward” buttons now.


VI. Printing a Web Page

Another important part of a web page is the menu toolbar. This is the gray menu of commands at the top of the screen:

The most important feature of this toolbar is the “File” menu. Here is how to use it to print out a web page or part of a web page:


1. Click on the “File” menu with your left mouse button.

2. Scroll down with your mouse arrow, and click on “Print Preview.”

3. Use the arrow keys that appear at the top of the screen to look at how the each page will appear when you print out the web page. The last page will often be blank except for a copyright notice.

4. Note which pages you would like to print, then close the Print Preview screen.

5. Click on the “File” menu again, then scroll down with your mouse arrow, and click on “Print.” A box will appear that will let you specify the pages to print.


VII. Web Addresses

The last thing we’ll cover today is how to go to another web page by typing in its address. Take a look at the address bar, the white box at the top of the screen where “http://www.gailborden.info/” appears:

This is the box we’ll type in when we want to go to another page, and we know that page’s web address.


The web address tells your computer how to access a web page. Unlike a postal address, it has no spaces in it. Web addresses also never end in a period. (When you see a “.” at the end of a web address, it means the address is being listed at the end of a sentence.) Capitalization usually does not matter, but spelling does.

Consider the parts of the library’s web address, http://www.gailborden.info/

Web addresses start with “http://”, which stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, the standard format for transmitting web pages on the Internet. You don’t have to type this in, though. Your Web browser will add it to the address for you if you leave it off.

Many web addresses also include “www”, which stands for “World Wide Web.” Most of the time, you don’t need to type this in, either, but it depends on how the web site was registered online.

The middle part of a web address identifies the company, organization, agency, or educational institution responsible for the web page. The computer hosting the Gail Borden Public Library’s web site is called “gailborden.”

The end of a web address gives you a little bit of information about what kind of entity is responsible for the web page, or in which country it was registered. The most common web address endings are:

.com: companies

.org: non-profit organizations

.edu: colleges and universities

.gov: government agencies in the United States

.info: information technology

.net: Internet service providers

.uk: site registered in Great Britain

.au: site registered in Australia

.mil: United States Military site

.biz: a new designation for a business site

Some nonprofit organizations choose “.com” for their websites, and there are other exceptions.

The library chose the “.info” ending for its web site.

Most web pages will end with a forward slash, or “/”. You don’t have to type this in. If you don’t, your browser will add it for you.

All you usually need to type in to go to a web site, then, is what comes after “http://www”, and before the final “/”. To visit the library’s public web page, for example, type gailborden.info in the address bar.

To go to another web page, click once with your left mouse button in the address bar. See how the address in it turns blue? That means you can type a new web address right over it. (If you click more than once by mistake, use the “Backspace” key or the “Delete” button on your keyboard to clear out the address bar.) When you have finished typing in a web address, press the “Enter” key on your keyboard.


VIII. More Web Pages to Explore

Now, it’s time to practice typing in web addresses. Here are some places to visit on the World Wide Web:

www.amazon.com: online bookstore

www.cnn.com: the CNN news web site

www.ebay.com: online auction site

www.mapquest.com: web site for finding maps and driving directions

finance.yahoo.com: financial web site

www.illinoisclicks.org: links from the state of Illinois

www.comics.com: comic strips from the funny pages, on the Web

(Yes, the links listed above work, but if you really want to learn how to navigate the Web, it’s best to practice typing them in the address bar.)


IX. Exiting the Internet

To close out of the web browser, either click on the “File” menu and then on “Close” with your left mouse button, or click on the small “X” in the very top right corner of your screen with your left mouse button.