administering collections of internet links (fwd)

[Alison McNab]

On Fri, 10 Oct 1997, Elizabeth L. Blakely wrote:

> Like many libraries we are creating a set of topically organized links to
> Internet sites, a miniature "Yahoo" that provides annotated links selected
> to support our user groups particular needs.  As our lists of sites grows
> we find the overlap and time to edit hard-coded lists time consuming
> hampering its growth and consistency.

So why do it?  Unless you are required to do so for political reasons (and
I am aware that in some academic institutions the powers-that-be see it as
fitting for their LIS staff to spend time on Internet resource discovery
and producing customised web pages), you are re-inventing the wheel. 
There are a number of specialised Subject-Based Internet Gateways and
general directory services which you could direct your users to. If you
and your colleagues have time to spare for resource discovery and
cataloguing, then perhaps that time could be spent contributing to a
national or international service (eg WWWVL). 

A webpage which lists a range of these services (albeit from a UK 
viewpoint) can be found at:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/info/training/finding/tracing_subjects.html
 
> I know about the OMNI project which provides an administrative
> gateway/database.  Does anyone have any experience with OMNI or know of
> any such tools they can recommend or warn me about.  OMNI's address is
> omni.ac.uk.

OMNI covers the biomedical subject area.  I can thoroughly endorse OMNI
(but must point out that I am prejudiced as I have a connection with the
project - http://omni.ac.uk/agec/agec.html). 

Alison McNab

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  | Alison McNab  (Academic Services Manager)                               |
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