catalog links to web sites

[Lubans, John]

Greetings:

This is a call for feedback from libraries who are cataloging web sites and 
creating live links from within their on line catalogs. The Duke library has 
already done a considerable amount of cataloging of and linking with  electronic 
versions of print materials, like all the journals in Project MUSE. 

Now, we'd like to test the idea for putting live or 'hot" links from inside  the 
library's on-line catalog to useful WEB sites, like ones for famous authors or 
other historic persons or for major topical collections. For example, students 
looking for information about Emma Goldman would encounter in our subject 
catalog several links to http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman. 

The organization and scaleability inherent in our catalogs suggest this could be 
a worthwhile experiment. Also, based on  preliminary input from a survey of web 
use among first year students at Duke, users have a high regard for librarians' 
ability to organize information. They would like our expert help in  making some 
sense of the Internet's seeming chaos. 

So, who out there has already undertaken something like this?

Please let me hear from you about how it is going and what we should take into 
account as we venture forth. I am particularly interested in how sites are 
selected for inclusion and how you assess their use. 
How are selected sites communicated to catalogers?
Do you use meta data/Dublin core elements in cataloging web sites?
What's the workload impact on selectors/catalogers?

Thank  you. 

If there is a significant response, I will compile and post it. 

John Lubans
Deputy University Librarian
Duke University
219 Perkins Library
Durham, NC,  27708 USA 
jl at mail.lib.duke.edu
919 660 5800
919 660 5923 FAX