Clearinghouse update, improvements

[Lou Rosenfeld]

Back in the olden days of the Internet (i.e., pre-1995), I used to make
somewhat regular announcements about the status of the Clearinghouse, and
as I've relegated myself to lurker status of late, I wanted to post this
to let you know that 1) the Clearinghouse continues to exist and improve,
and 2) I'm not dead (yet). 

The Clearinghouse (http://www.lib.umich.edu/chhome.html) continues to be
sponsored by Argus Associates and the University of Michigan.  It remains
true to its goal of providing access to value-added topical guides to
Internet resources.  I imagine there will be over one thousand such guides
accessible via the Clearinghouse by this summer.  Usage continues to grow,
with almost a half million hits per month (although we all know that hits
themselves really don't mean much). 

If you've used the Clearinghouse before, you'll be pleased to know of the 
improvements that are coming online.  
  * The guides' cover pages are now searchable
  (http://www.lib.umich.edu/chouse/search.html); we'd greatly appreciate
  your input on this new searching facility. 
  * We are slowly but surely adding our own qualitative evaluations of
  individual guides as well; these evaluations are based on a five-tiered
  system which we believe represents a good application of librarianship
  to Internet resources. 
  * Older guides (12 months+) will soon be moved to subsidiary pages,
  thereby making current guides more accessible. 

If you're new to the Clearinghouse, this might help:  if Internet
directories are placed on a continuum, resources such as Yahoo, which are
great for known-item searching and ad-hoc reference, but provide little
qualitative information, would be on one end.  Resources such as the
Clearinghouse guides and the WWW Virtual Library, which aren't as
comprehensive but provide value-added descriptive and evaluative
information ideal for researchers, would be at the other end of the
continuum. 

As always, access remains free, and we greatly welcome submissions of new
guides (http://www.lib.umich.edu/chouse/docs/submit.html), especially from
librarians and other information professionals. 

Best wishes all!


Louis Rosenfeld, President                                  lou at argus-inc.com
Argus Associates, Inc.                                   http://argus-inc.com
2901 Hubbard                                           voice: +1.313.913.0010
Ann Arbor, MI  48105-2467  USA                           fax: +1.313.769.7074