Web Directories
Yahoo! Directory has extensive and deep coverage of most subjects.
Yahoo presents country and regional views of its directory. For example, to see Canadian sites first in the listings, go directly to Yahoo! Canada (www.yahoo.ca). Other World views are also available - France, Italy, UK & Ireland, Asia - check the list at Yahoo for more.
Yahoo shows Sponsored sites from Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions, which it owns, and charges commercial sites an annual fee to be listed.
There are also many specialty guides and search tools: Yahooligans for Kids, Small Business, and Yahoo Finance.
It's not known if the Yahoo Directory will continue in the new partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo, where Microsoft will be supplying the search database.
Open Directory has a long history dating back to 1998. The idea was to have a people-powered directory, where volunteer editors make the selections, review the sites, and evaluate submissions. It began as NewHoo, an Internet grassroots initiative, and was eventually taken over by AOL. It is an "open" directory - anyone can use it at no cost. For this reason it is seen nearly everywhere and is used as the directory at such majors as Google, AOL, Exalead, Gigablast, MyWay. In September 2009, the count was 4.6 million sites and over 84,000 editors (up 2,000 from six months before). DMoz still has supporters and its directory matters to people looking for higher ranking of their websites. It's worth a shot although quality has been declining.
You'll know that a site's directory has been adapted from the Open Directory when you see the invitation to become an editor.
Explore this route: Computers > Internet > Searching to find many more search tools and tutorials on web searching.
Subject Guides
About.com (www.about.com)
About.com brings together some 750 Internet research guides (real people),
each of whom covers a subject area to present best-of-the-net resource
lists, feature articles, updates, newsletters and help. In 2009, About.com
received the 2009 People's Choice Webby Award in the category for Guides
/ Ratings / Reviews.
Suite101.com (www.suite101.com)
Suite101 describes itself as,"The world's most comprehensive independent
online magazine". About 2,500 professional writers have contributed
articles on 400 topics. The site uses a blog format for publishing articles
and inviting comments. Check the main page to get a quick idea of the
kinds of topics the guides cover. You can subscribe to RSS feeds. There
is a German version - Suite101.de
Selective Directories (Libraries)
ipl2 (www.ipl.org)
IPL2 is run by a consortium of 14 library schools in the US and hosted
at the Drexel University. It offers Resources by Subject containing first-rate
resources, Special Collections (essentially guides), online Newspapers
and Magazines , and areas for Kids and Teens. The search facility is weak
- begin by browsing.
ipl2 is the product of the merger of Librarians' Internet Index with the Internet Public Library. (December 2009)
Library
and Archives Canada (www.collectionscanada.ca/caninfo/ecaninfo.htm)
Canadian Information by Subject: Library and Archives
Canada created this subject index to information about Canada (obtained
mainly from Canadian sites) using the Dewey Decimal Classification system.
It may be the best available for finding Canadian content. Regrettably
sites are not annotated. In February 2009, it had nearly 12,500 links.
On average 100 links are added each month.
Subject Gateways (Academic)
Academic
Info.net (www.academicinfo.net/)
Subject directory done by librarian, Mike Madden, and addressed to college
and university students. There are 25,000 resources of subject guides
and educational resources. The site has advertising, and there may be
some dead links.
Infomine (infomine.ucr.edu)
Infomine is an academic virtual library with around 20,000 scholarly (expert-selected)
resources plus restricted access e-journals. Infomine began in 1994 as
a project of the Library of the University of California, Riverside. It
has extensive subject classification and field search functionality. It
looks tired, but new entries are being added.
Intute (www.intute.ac.uk)
WSG Pick
Intute is a free online service in the UK providing access to the "very
best web resources for education and research". This was launched
in 2006, building upon the earlier Resource Discovery Network. Subject
specialists from several universities in the UK evaluate and select the
resources. A consortium of seven universities and many partners run and
manage the service. The service has been kept very fresh with new features
for saving and rating sites. However, it has been recently announced
that funding will be cut back in mid-2010.
Subjects broadly cover:
1. Science and technology
2. Arts and humanities (including the creative industries)
3. Social sciences (including Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism)
4. Health and life sciences
Intute also offers many tutorials (see Training) on using the Internet for research and alerting services.
There is a MyIntute where you can save records of interest and set up alerts.
Pinakes
(www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/ irn/pinakes/pinakes.html)
Pinakes is a starting point for finding many high quality academic resources.
It is (somewhat) maintained by the Heriot-Watt University. The list of
Multi-Subject Gateways will give more leads.
RefSeek (http://www.refseek.com/directory/) Added Dec 2009
RefSeek is a new web search engine for students and researchers that "aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone". It has begun to build a reference directory that is very small but has high quality picks.
The
Scout Archives (scout.wisc.edu/Archives/) WSG
Pick
The Scout Report Archives holds the reviews of the web sites and other
internet resources covered in the Scout Report. The collection and the
newsletter are both excellent for variety of coverage and quality of selection.
Subject classification done using Library of Congress Subject Headings
is extensive.
Profile Page
Kosmix (www.kosmix.com) Added Dec 2009
Kosmix is not a subject guide nor a subject directory but it is able to create summary "profile" pages on topics using materials from across the web. It does this through its coded knowledge of sources and its analytical ability to match on meaning. Editors are involved but it they guide and tweak the algorithms. Try Kosmix for digital cameras or any other general topic.
Believed to have the largest number of Canadian
sites. For Canada only, check the regional category for Canada. |
Where to Next?
Look at topical views through Social Bookmarking services.