Subject Guides

Argus Clearinghouse
The W3C Virtual Library

Subject guides are collections of subject resources where each subject is presided over by a maintainer or author. In this case, the maintainer or author is usually a subject expert, and the resources should be of high quality because they have been filtered and picked specifically for the guide. Resources in subject guides are sometimes annotated, and the level of annotation varies by guide.


Argus Clearinghouse
http://www.clearinghouse.net/

Provider: Argus Associates
Browsable index: Yes
Search capabilities: Yes, for the "information pages" that describe each guide.
Item submission method: Human
Selection of Resources/Who Selects Yes, for guides/Argus Clearinghouse. Yes, for resources in the guides/Guide maintainers
Annotated: Yes for the guides, by Argus editors. For the resources in the guides, it depends upon the guides.
Intended Audience:General, research and education
FAQ: Yes, for the product. Yes, for the searching system.
Provided by Argus Associates, these guides, these guides have been assembled by individuals with experience in the given field of study, and each guide links to important sites within the subject area. Each guide is evaluated and rated by Clearinghouse staff. Ratings are based on level of resource description, level of resource evaluation, and guide design, organizational schemes, and meta-information. The advantage of the Clearinghouse is that it provides hypertext documents compiled by subject experts that link users to pre-evaluated Internet resources.
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The W3C Virtual Library
http://www.fisk.edu/vl/Overview.html

Provider: WorldWide Web Consortium
Browsable index: Yes
Search capabilities: No
Item submission method: Human
Selection of Resources/Who Selects? Depends on the guide/Guide maintainer
Annotated: Yes, by the guide maintainer
Intended AudienceGeneral, research and education
FAQ: No
The Virtual Library, provided by the WorldWide Web Consortium (W3C), offers a catalog of hundreds of subjects. A unique aspect of this catalog is that each subject is kept current by an individual, called a "maintainer." Each maintainter helps assure a specific section of the catalog is up-to-date and useful, providing an additional level of human intervention. A catalog of 10 popular subject fields is provided, based on the number of links to those resources from other Internet sites.
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