Methods and apparatus for simultaneously searching public and private information sources are provided. When a user implements a key word search of a public search engine via a web browser, the same key word search is automatically simultaneously implemented of a private information source to locate at least one of user contacts and documents relevant to the key word search. The user contacts and/or the documents returned from the private information source may be scored for relevancy to the key word search. Public search results are returned to the user based on the key word search of the public search engine. In addition, up to N most relevant of the at least one of the user contacts and the documents obtained from the private information source may be returned to the user in a side bar of the web browser adjacent to the public search results.