Cataloging the net

[MRSCLIST]

Wilfred Drew wrote:

> I am opposed to librarians trying to catalog the Internet.  We should
> be concentrating on developing the subject guides as suggested by Eric
> Rumsey.  Several years ago after I wrote Not Just Cows I issued a
> challenge on PACS-L suggesting that each librarian and/or library pick 
a
> subject and create a highly selective guide to online resources.  My
> challenge was pretty much ignored.  Not Just Cows is such a guide.  It
> is highly selective and does tend to reflect my likes and dislikes.  
Why
> can't each one of us select a narrow or broad subject and create a
> selective yet comprehensive guide to internet/online resources?  We 
used
> top write such things about the print literature. They are called 
bibliographies. 

Now we call them links!

Speaking of cataloging the internet, the Washington State Library is 
involved in a project called GILS, or Government Information Locator 
Service, modeled after the Federal GILS project, where government 
documents and records that are made available electronically on the web 
are indexed extensively using meta-tags. These metadata fields are 
located in the html codes prior to content, and include information such 
as document title, author, description, keywords, date, agency info, etc, 
etc. Apparently the info contained in this metadata makes it a powerful 
tool for search engines. And because it is very similair to library 
cataloging, I wouldn't be surprised if librarians in future adopt most of 
the standards. If any of you are sincerely interested, you could visit 
the Washington State Gils Project at: http://www.wa.gov/wsl/gils.htm  .

Andrew Derby  <dderby at mrsc.org>
Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington Library
1200 Fifth Ave., Suite 1300
Seattle, WA 98101
206-625-1300
http://www.mrsc.org