Browsing for subject information
Multidisciplinary subject directories
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UK
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Non-UK
Portals and directory listings
Subject gateways and hubs
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Resource Discovery Network
Subject resource guides
There are two main ways to track information on the Internet: searching using a search engine or other retrieval tool (see Chapter 5), or browsing in an Internet subject directory or gateway, which this chapter deals with. Parallel with the development of more sophisticated Internet retrieval tools have been attempts to organize the Internet intellectually. In response to the need for better subject access to Internet resources, various services have been set up to facilitate this – the major ones are discussed in this chapter and they are also extensively referred to in the resource guides in section
2.
The earliest collections of resources organized by subject were known as subject trees. These offered a method of organizing related resources without regard to their physical location, and normally include direct links to the listed resources. Nowadays they are usually referred to as subject gateways , subject collections or directories , and may either be multidisciplinary or focus on a particular subject area. They are ideally suited to browsing for information, when you wish to know what resources are available in a specific subject area.
The subject gateways tend to evaluate and describe Internet resources, but other services simply add links to hierarchical menus (sometimes known as ‘channels’). An increasing number of
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websites have developed the portal concept – incorporating a directory of Internet sites along with news feeds, free e-mail and other tools. A portal can be a valuable starting point for new Internet users, but the impetus for development is usually commercial and supported by advertising.
Portals are intended as a one-stop shop or department store to keep users at that site to view the adverts or use the shopping facilities. They have limitations for information professionals who will want to develop their own resource collections using local web pages and bookmarks as well as portals; they can also be slow to load and poorly designed. Home pages for the major consumeroriented Internet Service Providers (eg Freeserve, Virgin.net) are portals.
Traffick: the Guide to Portals http://www.traffick.com/ follows web portal trends with regular columns, news, comparisons, tools, tutorials, specialized reports, and statistics.
Multidisciplinary subject directories
The sites below include an element of annotation – with brief descriptions or reviews of resources, rather than mere links.
UK directories
BUBL Link http://www.bubl.ac.uk/Link/ is a long-established project that selects, organizes and describes high-quality resources of academic relevance.
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EARLweb http://www.earl.org.uk/earlweb/index.html is a ready reference to information on the Internet for public library staff. Sections comprise: the global library, lifelong learning, science and technology, the citizen in society, imagination and memory, the online enquiry desk, business intelligence, and the public librarian.
Non-UK subject directories
About.com http://home.about.com/index.htm
A network of sites including over 700 highly targeted ‘environments; or subject areas, with annotations. Many leisure areas are covered, and the section on Internet/online is valuable for beginners.
AlphaSearch http://www.calvin.edu/library/searreso/internet/as/ provides instant access to hundreds of gateway sites. It offers both searching and browsing facilities by discipline and/or resource type. All sites included in AlphaSearch have been evaluated on content, academic appropriateness, and currency.
InfoMine http://lib-www.ucr.edu/ offers searching and browsing in its collection of 11,000+ academically valuable resources in a
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whole range of subject areas. Internet/Web resources include databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, listservs, online library catalogs, articles and directories of researchers.
Scout Report Signpost http://www.signpost.org/signpost/ contains Internet resources chosen by the editorial staff of the Scout Report (a series of electronic newsletters listing new resources) http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/mirrors/scout/report/sr/about.html which have been catalogued and organized for efficient browsing and searching.
Top of the Web http://www.december.com/web/top.html
John December nominates his ‘top five’ resources in the following categories: art, business, computers, education, entertainment, government, humanities, keywords, lookup, marketing, money, news, people, science, software, and subjects.
The World Wide Web Virtual Library was the first subject-based collection of web resources, predating the development of graphical browsers for the world wide web. It is a distributed subject catalogue, created by volunteers from around the world, who are often experts in their own field.
Note that it does not cover all subject areas. The URL for the UK mirror site is http://www.mth.uea.ac.uk/VL/Home.html but you will find that specific subject sections are based wherever they are maintained.
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Portals and directory listings
The resources below tend to include a search facility (see Chapter 6) in addition to the opportunity to browse by subject. To use these services to their full potential, it is important to read any Help or
Information files that they may provide. These will tend to discuss search strategies, Boolean syntax, and any personalization options offered.
Britannica.com http://www.britannica.com/ lets users simultaneously search the complete, updated Encyclopædia Britannica, reviews of more than 125,000 web sites, articles from leading magazines, and related books.
Excite UK http://www.excite.co/uk/ is a large database of Internet resources, which offers two approaches to locating information: a search facility and channels, which are organised by topic in a many-tiered hierarchy.
Galaxy http://www.einet.net/galaxy.html provides ten subject categories, each with subheadings, to browse.
Looksmart UK http://www.looksmart.co.uk/ provides keyword search, category-based directory and interactive search services.
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Lycos UK http://www.lycos.co.uk/ provides a browsable directory (Webguides) and a range of search options. Lycos promotes Family
Safe Software, and provides users with subsidized software tools to filter out offensive content.
Magellan http://magellan.excite.com/ is an online directory with brief annotations about each resource listed in its eighteen browsable subject categories. Magellan is owned by Excite.
UK Directory http://www.ukdirectory.com/ aims to provide a comprehensive guide to everything in the United Kingdom on the Web.
UK Index http://www.ukindex.co.uk/index.html does not offer a browsing facility, but the search facility can be combined with category searching and brief summaries of resources are provided.
WebCrawler http://webcrawler.com/ is a search tool that also offers nineteen channels for browsing Internet resources. WebCrawler is
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owned by Excite.
Yahoo! UK & Ireland http://uk.yahoo.com/ is frequently talked about as a search tool, but it is more accurately described as a virtual library or directory. Users can search the database to find information on the web, or browse down Yahoo’s fourteen hierarchical categories.
Subject gateways and hubs
Subject gateways collect and evaluate Internet resources in a particular subject area. The majority of these have an academic origin, and many are included in the World Wide Web Virtual Library.
A number of the Internet resources listed below are included in Pinakes , a web site which aims to catalogue major subject gateways: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html
The majority of the gateways listed below aim to provide a comprehensive list of relevant UKbased sources in their subject area, as well as a guide to high-quality international networked resources. Such gateways normally evaluate, select and describe the resources they include and in many cases it is possible to browse the resource descriptions before connecting directly to the resource itself. A search facility, allowing keyword searching of the descriptions and other information, is normally available. Most of these sites will also include a ‘what’s new’ facility, background information on the project, and possibly additional subject services.
In the UK, a number of subject gateways were funded through eLib, the Electronic Libraries
Programme; these are marked below with an *. During 2000, many of these will be incorporated
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into the Resource Discovery Network (see below).
*ADAM - art, design, architecture & media http://adam.ac.uk/
AERADE - aerospace and defence http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/
*Biz/ed - economics and business http://www.bizednet.bris.ac.uk/
Business Information Sources on the Internet http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/business/index.html
* CAIN – conflict studies http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/
Chemdex - chemistry http://www.chemdex.org/
* EEVL - engineering http://eevl.ac.uk/
ELDIS - development and the environment http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis
* History
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http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/
Lingu@NET – language learning http://vtc.ngfl.gov.uk/resource/linguanet/index.html
* OMNI - biomedicine http://omni.ac.uk/
Port - maritime studies http://www.port.nmm.ac.uk/
* RUDI
– urban design http://rudi.herts.ac.uk/ psi-com - public understanding of science http://www.psci-com.org.uk/
* SOSIG – social sciences http://sosig.ac.uk/
The Resource Discovery Network (RDN) http://www.rdn.ac.uk/ is a UK resource being developed to carry forward the subject gateway concept. It will cover academic subjects on a faculty hub basis, with a number of subject gateways clustered round each. hub. Most RDN hubs will be launched in spring 2000 and at present comprise:
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BIOME - health and life sciences http://biome.ac.uk/
EMC - engineering, mathematics and computing http://www.emc.ac.uk/
Humbul - humanities http://www.humbul.ac.uk/
PSIgate - physical sciences http://www.psigate.ac.uk/
SOSIG - social sciences, business and law http://www.sosig.ac.uk/
Subject resource guides
In addition to gateways, directories and portals which provide links to sites in a particular subject area, there have been many guides created which describe the full range of Internet resources (Web sites, discussion lists, newsgroups, FTP archives, etc.) for a specific topic. These guides will normally include annotations or comments, and are particularly valuable if the author is an authority on the topic. If a guide has been produced for a topic of interest to you, then much of the preliminary browsing has already been done for you – provided that the guide is comprehensive and is kept up-to-date!
The major collection of these guides is the Argus Clearinghouse
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http://www.clearinghouse.net/
Unfortunately, guides are not available for every subject area and in some cases are merely lists of discussion lists. One useful feature of the Clearinghouse is that it provides the date on which a guide was last updated and contact details for the author.
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