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Subject Directories
A subject directory is a service that offers a collection of
links to Internet resources submitted by site creators or evaluators and
organized into subject categories.
When should I use a subject directory?
- When you want to find a specific place for quick reference such as
embassies, universities, gov't.
- When you have a broad topic or idea to research
- When you want to see a list of sites on your topic often recommended and
annotated by experts
- When you want to retrieve a list of sites relevant to your topic, rather
than numerous individual pages contained within these sites
- When you want to search for the site title, annotation and (if available)
assigned keywords to retrieve relevant material rather than the full text of a
document
- When you want to avoid viewing low-content documents that often turn up on
search engines
Organizations,
universities, libraries often have subject directories along with the general,
better known ones such as:
- Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com) - does not reliably evaluate content, but only
categorizes sites submitted to the service and is not an appropriate research
tool. It is excellent for finding quick facts or ready reference such as
embassies, list of universities, branches of the government, etc.
Hierarchical subject organization makes it excellent for browsing.
- Argus Clearinghouse
(http://www.clearinghouse.net) - rated guides to high-quality subject
collections on the Internet.
- INFOMINE
(http://infomine.ucr.edu) - 20,000+ well annotated and
cataloged sites for academic research.
- Librarian's Index to the
Internet (http://www.lii.org)- 7,000+ carefully selected
and extensively annotated sites of use in academic research and for many general
inquires. Rates "Best of" in each category.
- WWW Virtual library
(http://www.vlib.org)- This collection was the first subject directory on the
Web, and boasts a number of comprehensive, well-annotated subject collections
maintained by experts around the world
For a more complete list of subject directories, click here.
A Quick Sample
Exercise
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