Newsletter 13, October 1996
| Newsletter 13, October 1996
Useful Web Sites |
The vast amount of information available over the internet makes locating relevant, good-quality information very difficult. The process of reaching useful resources is aided considerably if someone else sorts through all that is available and presents a small, manageable, and, above all else, organized listing of quality resources in a given discipline. This, of course, is what we do in Library Services with our collection of subject pages relating to specific areas of teaching and learning at Leeds Metropolitan University.
Sometimes, however, you need to look for resources at a more general level than we cover with the subject guides. This is possible using a series of "gateways" covering very large discipline areas such as humanities and medicine. They work in a similar way to our subject guides in that experts within a particular field select appropriate resources to include in the gateway, and as such exclude the vast majority of what is available. These resources are then described, indexed and organized in a way that makes it possible to decide whether a resource is of value before you attempt to connect to it.
Considerable effort goes into identifying good-quality resources from around the world and ensuring that linking to them from the gateway is the easiest way of access to them. The general nature of the gateways is such that they complement the subject guides produced by Library Services, and the gateways and guides should be used in tandem to get the best results. Some of the more important gateways are described below.
There are a number of other gateways: please take a look at the University's Internet Information Service to view and connect to the complete list.
NISS provides a focal point for the UK education and research communities to access information resources world-wide, linking users to a wide range of services on the Internet and other networks. Unlike the other gateways it covers all subject areas and also provides links to a extensive collection of resources about the UK HE sector.
The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) is an ESRC-funded project, based at the University of Bristol. SOSIG provides a centralised means of access to social science resources in the UK and world-wide. The resources have been selected for their use to social science researchers and practitioners. A short description of each resource is available before connecting to it.
OMNI is a gateway to quality Internet resources in medicine, biosciences, health care and health management. It is comprehensive as regards the UK and selective as regards the rest of the world. Users may search or browse UK resources, resources in the rest of the world, or both together.
ADAM is building an information gateway to quality-assured resources on the internet in art, design, architecture, and the media. ADAM is one of the newest gateways and is still under development.
Mike Berrington