THE information age is pushing the performance boundaries of the search engines as hard as it is pushing for new technological toys. Search engines are listening to customers' demands for more accurate and appropriate results and the race is on. A look at some of the new desktop search tools and products out there will give you a new list of links to put in your Favourites folder.

Google, www.google.co.uk , has become a household word for surfers. It is a leading change agent for search engines. Google has announced it will be putting information from seven world-renowned libraries into its data base, including Oxford, Harvard and New York libraries.

Blinkx is using a novel Smart Folder' system. Visit www.blinkx.com to find out how this tool, which sits on your pc, will check out what you are doing and then search the Internet for information and news on that topic, load related links and check for related files and emails on your pc. Now that's using the technology a bit better. In a similar vein, and aimed at the corporate market, Enfish at www.enfish.com offers a product that links search topics to information on the Internet, in your data banks, calendars, emails and document folders. They are members of the new family of search tools floating around the market place, challenging the status quo.

For a product that resembles an online spy, check out Copernic at www.copernic.com . This product has search, tracking and summarising capabilities. They are part of the new generation of products coming online and giving the old standards some competition. The variety of services offered within these products is what works for us as consumers.

If you do your search from Web Crawler at www.webcrawler.com, it will snoop around the top search sites for answers, including Google, www.google.com, Yahoo, www.yahoo.com , Ask Jeeves, www.ask.co.uk , About www.about.com , LookSmart, www.looksmart.com , and Overture, www.overture.com to name a few. Sit back, search and let the Crawler do the hard work for you. Keep an eye on all the search engine sites, the competition is getting hot and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. This is definitely playing into the user's hand.

If you have been to Ask Jeeves at www.ask.co.uk , you will notice some new advanced search links at the bottom of the page. You can enhance your search by picking areas such as weather, famous people, pictures, shares, conversions, dictionary, news or products to help narrow the search and widen the accuracy base of the search.

Jeeves also offers a Top Searches section so if there is a hot topic like top news searches or latest gadgets the site lists are stored there for you. The technology or rather the people behind it are getting smarter.

The American site iTools at www.itools.com looks boring, but is very functional. It offers a click-to-search function for search, language, research, financial, map and internet tools all on one page. Not quite doing the work for you', but definitely providing a good one-stop platform to launch your quest from.

A big challenge is finding the right sites when school children are doing their homework online which seems to be one of the top methods. Visit www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm for their Kids Search section. It has links to dictionary, encyclopedia, libraries online and kids search facilities like Yahooligans at www.yahooligans.com or Ask Jeeves for kids at www.ajkids.com . There is also a link to the Awesome Library, with more than 180,000 entries. They are all geared to stopping the questions and getting them thinking.

Searching on www.thisisthelakedistrict Not all the site information can appear at top level, but the search tool at the top of our site offers some help in finding news and information current and from earlier dates. Our site search function (top banner) allows you to search by key words, date, reporter's name, town or location.

All these tools, whether hosted on the Internet or your own computer, are there to help make finding information more efficient and effective. If you have used a tool and want to review it for Web Watch please get in touch with the Web Editor by emailing kate.whiteside@kendal.newsquest.co.uk .

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Tsunami Disaster - We have launched a special section in the News section of www.thisisthelakedistrict.co.uk for disaster news, updates, appeal information and news from people affected.

If you want to post information about an appeal, messages to travellers or for those at home, or have tales to tell, email the Web Editor at kate.whiteside@kendal.newsquest.co.uk.