Gateways to the Internet: finding quality information on the Internet

Library Trends, Fall, 2003 by Adrienne Franco

ABSTRACT

Librarians have long sought to select, evaluate, and organize information on the Internet. Efforts began with individual librarians sharing bookmark files of favorite sites and progressed to increasingly large, collaboratively produced general and subject/discipline-specific gateway Web sites or megasites. Megasites list major resources usually in a particular subject area or discipline. Library portals that review, evaluate, and sometimes rate and rank resources grew from some of these Web sites. Both megasites and portals serve as gateways to the Internet. Many portals have developed from relatively small static files into large, dynamically generated databases providing descriptive annotations of selected resources and are increasingly overseen as global projects with formal policies and procedures. Portals now provide increasingly complex and sophisticated browse and search capabilities with a multitude of access points, often including call numbers and subject headings. These are described and compared. Future trends such as increased collaboration among portals; automated location, selection, and cataloging of resources; integration of multiple resource types; and increased access to full-content and virtual library services are also discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Librarians have long been involved in efforts to select, organize, describe, and evaluate Internet resources. Librarian-produced Internet tools have much to offer that commercial search engines and other tools lack:

   While these search engines [Yahoo and Alta Vista] and others like
   them have strengths, their weaknesses are well known: a high
   percentage of nonauthoritative content mixed with quality content
   that, when indexed together, makes locating relevant information
   serendipitous at best. (Wells et al., 1999, p. 347)

Early on, individual librarians compiled bookmark files that listed favorite sites. These lists often reflected institutional priorities and usually had a limited geographical focus as well. In fact, the well-respected Librarian's Index to the Internet began as then Berkeley Public Library librarian Carole Leita's gopher bookmark file (Buchwald, 2002, p. 38). As the Internet grew in size and audience and became more accessible, librarians worked collaboratively to create and maintain resource sites and megasites. These might be multidisciplinary, as in selections of general reference resources, or subject or discipline specific. Initially, following print models of bibliographic control, these guides were essentially Web bibliographies or "Webliographies." Megasites (sometimes called "metasites") are larger and more comprehensive. Webliographies and megasites became increasingly sophisticated, providing descriptive annotations. Portals are larger still and often evaluate and sometimes rate megasites and other Internet resources.

The LITA Internet Portals Interest Group

   defines a portal as a service (and related systems and approaches
   to organization) that facilitates organized knowledge discovery
   via information accessible through the Internet. (American Library
   Association. Library and Information Technology Association, n.d.)

Portals are now often supported as independent projects and are frequently underwritten financially through state, local, or national governments or private philanthropic funding (cf., for example, Ansdell, 2000; Buchwald, 2002, p. 38; Wells et al., 1999, p. 347).

As portals became more established and grew larger, librarians took advantage of software advances to convert them into databases that are browsable and searchable by multiple access points, frequently including call numbers and subject headings.

SCOPE

This article will focus primarily on librarian-produced portals or portals with a high level of librarian participation. Sites described and discussed are freely available on the Web. These portals will be described and compared. Excluded or de-emphasized are sites created and maintained primarily outside the library community, print resources including books and articles, information available only in fee-based subscription databases, and search engines.

ARTICLE BACKGROUND

This article grew out of a presentation given on October 14, 1999, by the author and a colleague, Richard Palladino, at the 10th Annual Meeting of the International Information Management Association (IIMA) held at Iona College. An invitation to participate in this conference was extended to Iona College faculty and staff. The concept of information management seemed especially pertinent to librarians and the opportunity to present before an audience of nonlibrarians was especially intriguing and attractive. Aware of widespread concern about the quality (or lack of quality) on the World Wide Web, thoughts of librarians extending bibliographic and quality control from print to the Web came to mind, and so we decided to share this with our fellow information professionals. The Web page "Finding Quality Information on the World Wide Web" (http:// www.iona.edu/faculty/afranco/iima/webliog.htm) was created for presentation at the conference and has been maintained since then and most recently updated on April 4, 2002. We were the only librarians to present at this conference. Information professionals from around the world attended, and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Some took us aside and said they had been unaware of librarians' attempt to select, organize, and evaluate Internet resources.