This week in school we are learning how to search the Internet beyond Google. We are learning about the Deep Web and all kinds of spiffy databases and directories that can point a person in some interesting directions. I’ve perhaps been having too much fun following links and playing around to see what turns up. I say too much fun because it has been taking me longer than usual to get through the readings this week. However, it’s all in the name of learning, right?
Because all the other searching I’ve been learning how to do has been in subscription-only databases I couldn’t really share much of what I found with you. But the Internet searching I am doing this week is free and you can poke around too, so I thought I’d share some of the more particularly bookish locations with you.
Start your search engines!
- Open Directory Project is a human-edited directory (you can become a volunteer editor if you feel so inclined). The point of the directory is for humans to cull the good from the bad and then organize it to make it easier for the searcher to find. Literature comes under the arts section in this directory and currently has 27,330 listings which are broken down even further into categories like “American Literature” (1,024) and “Short Stories” (21).
- Bubl Link is another directory. Created by librarians and organized into Dewey categories, this directory is hosted by the Centre for Digital Library Research at Strathcyde University in Glasgow. And the 800s (literature and rhetoric) are filled with bookish goodness. It is a clean, and lovely directory, just what you would expect from librarians.
- The Virtual Library is another directory and just so happens to be the “oldest catalogue of the Web.” Not especially filled with bookish lisintgs, it does have fantastic leads to sites on gender studies, women’s history, art, and libraries including reference sources.
- Librarian’s Internet Index was created by librarians for librarians but it’s too good to keep a secret. It is not as easy to use as the directories where you click on useful headings, you have to do a search, but the searching is easy. And where else will you find a link to Wine Literature of the World?
In my playing around following links, I found two sites I thought were particularly fun and will definitely return to. The first is Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia. It is a bibliography that “lists, cites, and describes sf & critical works from a feminist perspective.” There are links and other resources indexed too and among the vast book lists, also manages to include film and television, theater and performance art.
And finally, it seems as though I have seen this one before, but maybe not. Domestic Goddess a.k.a. “scribbling mobs of women” is a moderated e-journal focusing on women writers who mostly wrote between 1830-1920 and who wrote “domestic fiction.” Here you will find essays on the likes of Kate Chopin, Louisa May Alcott and Edith Wharton.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love the Internet? I recommend having a snack and your beverage of choice on-hand and an hour or two or more of time before you set off clicking around. And please, send a report if you find something really good.
Oh MAN! You’ve just MADE my night!! (Of course, now I won’t be getting any sleep…) I have been dying for better ways to search the Internet for years.
I can imagine all the fun you are having! I bet it’s so easy to lose track of time right? Keep us posted of other gems you find!
What an informative and interesting post. The ’scribbling women’ site was fun. I look forward to checking out the others when time allows. What an asset you are to all of us, Stefanie! Thanks for all the great links. TJ
I love the internet too. I wonder why we don’t have an international internet appreciation day? I should call the U.N….
The idea of the Deep Web gives me goosebumps. I know that there is Web-based material that is password protected and inaccessible to search engines, but I didn’t anticipate that it would be several orders of magnitude larger than the searchable Web. Cool!!
I wonder whether the percentages of video, images, and text in the Deep Web are the same as those on the visible Web.
Oh dear… there goes another decent working day……. And the deep web does sound rather thrilling, doesn’t it?
Thanks for the great links! I remember using the Virtual Library a few years ago, but then completely forgot about it… It was back in the days when a page got loaded in 2 minutes and I could fetch a coffee and be back before it was completed!
Luckily I didn’t have much else to do this afternoon
Thank you, this is great!
I’m resisting clicking on those links for now, as i really must begin my end-of-semester grading soon, and can’t risk getting distracted, as I surely will, but I’ll be back!
Emily, library school is finally starting to pay off!
Iliana, very easy to lose track of time.
TJ, aw shucks, thanks!
Sylvia, please do give the UN a call.
Polaris, the deep web does cause goosebumps. I’ve been searching the deep web for class mostly for text, but from my readings I get the impression there are loads of audio and video out there that “surface web” engines can’t find. I’ll be there are deep web video and audio databases that will help in finding them.
Litlove, if you’re like me, you’ll be spending more than one working day
Smithereens, those were the days!
Verbivore, always glad to share
Dorothy, yes, you won’t want to start clicking around if you have other things you have to do.