Librarians' Internet Index
Compiled by Rachel McMullen
The Librarians' Internet Index's tagline, "websites you can trust," gives a good indication of what this subject directory is all about. A team of librarians reviews and selects all the websites included in the directory. Currently there are more than 20,000 entries divided into 14 main topics and almost 300 subtopics. Each entry includes a short description of the site. Most of the topics, and the websites selected, are aimed at a general audience, with topics like Health, Recreation, and Media. However, it is also possible to find a few links to more scholarly pages.
One original feature of the Librarians' Internet Index is their weekly newsletter called New This Week, which is published every Thursday morning. Each newsletter contains a list of newly-discovered websites that are being added to subject directory. You can either subscribe to receive it though e-mail or view it on the website.
The Librarians' Internet Index has a number of pros going for it. First, they employ a weeder, whose job is to review older websites looking for dead links. They pride themselves on having less than 100 dead links at any time. Second, the arrangement of sites in a directory with main topics and subtopics makes it easy to navigate and find what you need by pointing and clicking. There is also a search feature for those who prefer it. Third, each entry has a button that allows you to email the entry, including both the link and the description, to yourself or someone else. The final advantage is the large number of entries; it is possible to find good sites on almost any topic.
In contrast, there are only a couple of negatives to the Librarians' Internet Index. One is that it is limited mostly to general information websites and is not a great choice for doing research for school. The second is that its large number of entries sometimes becomes a problem. In some cases there are hundreds of entries for one subtopic, which can be overwhelming.