[WEB4LIB] DMoz stuff?

[Roy Tennant]

Let me see...instant Internet guides to...what? Junk? Here's one of their 
exciting links:

<ExternalPage about="http://www.virtual.net.au/~belair">
  <d:Title>Belair Property Maintenance Services</d:Title>
  <d:Description>Belair Property Maintenance specialises in lawn mowing,
garden and turf maintenance in Melbournes outer eastern Suburbs.Our
service also incorporates Integrated Pest Control in turf ,garden and
horticultural situations using either biological and chemical
applications.</d:Description>
</ExternalPage>

I suppose it's ok if you want to replicate Yahoo!, but who wants to do
that? (not me). The hard part isn't the links, it's the selection. And
until they write truly intelligent software, that still needs human
intervention. So, like Thomas, I am dubious about it's long-term
viability, but perhaps for different reasons.

As for putting instant Internet guides on your site, talk to Carole Leita
(cleita at earthlink.net) about co-branding the Librarians' Index to the
Internet. Imagine putting your own library's logo, buttons, and look and
feel on the LII and you'll get the drift.
Roy Tennant

On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, Thomas Dowling wrote:

> Is anyone doing anything clever with material from the Open Directory
> Project (www.dmoz.org)?  It seems like it ought to be a way to put instant
> Internet guides on your site.  Just ftp it, gunzip it, and run it
> through...uh...some good XML parser and search engine?  Anyone?
> 
> I have played around a little with the Personal Open Directory script, but
> I doubt it would scale well and I'm dubious about the long-term viability
> of a product that's really just screen-scraping directory.netscape.com.
> 
> Thomas Dowling
> OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
> tdowling at ohiolink.edu
> 
> 
>