WWW Virtual Library and Britannica Internet Guide: Reviews and Search Tips
The 10-page list of websites is organized alphabetically by source (e.g. Dept. of Agriculture, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Arizona State University). Individual web pages are listed under the names of their sources.
Titles are the only information given for most of the sites, but some contain brief descriptions. A fair number of websites included in the Botany category are ftp or gopher links or require the use of telnet.
Some Surprising Topics Included
You'll find some unexpected topics covered in WWW Virtual Library. For example, there's a category called Roadkill which lists anything on the Web (including gallows humor) about this gory subject.
Non-academic subjects are generally maintained by commercial websites. For example, Travel is maintained by Footloose.net and Gardening (an especially excellent category) is maintained by Garden Web.
WWW Virtual Library is an excellent place to go when you have some background in a subject area and are willing to take the time to explore highly specialized, information-rich websites.
BRITANNICA INTERNET GUIDE - A GENERAL GUIDE TO QUALITY WEBSITES
Britannica Internet Guide (http://www.ebig.com) has more of an academic emphasis than Yahoo, LookSmart or other popular website guides, but is less scholarly than WWW Virtual Library. University and government sites are featured for many of the topics and most of the web pages listed concentrate more on providing information than entertainment.
Like the famed Encyclopaedia Britannica, Britannica Internet Guide makes a special effort to be useful to high school and junior high school students, while serving as a general reference for adults. If you have memories (as I do) of trying unsuccessfully to discern the organization of the Macropaedia, Micropaedia and Propaedia, be assured that the design of Britannica Internet Guide is clear and navigation is easy.
Useful Feature For High School Students
A very useful feature for graduating high school seniors, which is included in most subject categories, are links to universities that have programs in a specific area of study. In addition, for some fields, there are links to web pages discussing employment outlook and opportunities.
Subject Coverage
All subject categories in Britannica Internet Guide are well done, but some are especially comprehensive. The Art and Literature category is particularly strong. For example, 32 playwrights, from Aeschylus to Mamet are handled as separate topics. Health and Medicine and Travel and Tourism are other areas that are explored extensively.
Coverage of individual subjects is broad, but not always deep. You can find websites about fairly specific subjects quickly
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