Gateways to the Internet: Finding Quality Information on the Internet

Librarians have long sought to select, evaluate, and organize information on the Internet. Efforts began with individual librarians sharing bookmark files of favorite sites and progressed to increasingly large, collaboratively produced general and subject/discipline-specific gateway Web sites or megasites. Megasites list major resources usually in a particular subject area or discipline. Library portals that review, evaluate, and sometimes rate and rank resources grew from some of these Web sites. Both megasites and portals serve as gateways to the Internet. Many portals have developed from relatively small static files into large, dynamically generated databases providing descriptive annotations of selected resources and are increasingly overseen as global projects with formal policies and procedures. Portals now provide increasingly complex and sophisticated browse and search capabilities with a multitude of access points, often including call numbers and subject headings. These are described and compared. Future trends such as increased collaboration among portals; automated location, selection, and cataloging of resources; integration of multiple resource types; and increased access to full-content and virtual library services are also discussed.