Notice: This file is archived for historical purposes only and is not being updated. Please see the index for updates.
INTERNET--Searching
- New or Noteworthy
-
Cool Central: the site that rates the sites that rate the sites; I rate this site highly (http://www.coolcentral.com)
-- Notable individual sites with "what's new" information.
- Net Happenings archive: archive of a moderated mailing list that announces conferences, publications, newsletters, network tools updates, and network resources; this page includes a submittal form (http://www.mid.net/NET/)
- Netsurfer Digest: a e-zine covering what is happing in Internet technology and Web sites (http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/)
- Scout Report: a weekly publication of Net Scout Services to stay informed of valuable resources on the Internet (http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/)
- What's New/Too: A listing of new resources on the Web (http://newtoo.manifest.com/WhatsNewToo/search.html)
- Yahoo New: What's New on Yahoo Hierarchical Hotlist (http://www.yahoo.com/new/)
Sites which provide lists of new information sites on the Internet play an important role in getting the word out about resources.
Other sites pass judgements on other sites--originating from "cool sites," these sites recognize other sites for a variety of reasons, not all of which make sense.
-- Collections
-
Cool Central: the site that rates the sites that rate the sites; I rate this site highly (http://www.coolcentral.com)
- Resource Lists
- XXX-MOVED-FIX Awesome List: a list of useful resources, by John Makulowich (http://www.awesomelist.com)
- CMC resources: resources related to the study of Computer-Mediated Communication, from the CMC Studies Center (http://www.december.com/cmc/study/center.html)
- Hotsheet: a no-frills quick-access page to a variety of resources (http://www.tstimpreso.com/hotsheet/)
- Hot100: a list of the 100 most popular web sites, as measured by a methodology that considers hits aggregated from a variety of sources including surveys, logs and traffic samples (http://www.100hot.com)
- Top Tens: from Internet Training and Consulting Services, resource lists which are picks of the Net and Web in Top-level resources, art, commerce, fun, Internet training, K-12 education, library, Internet books and journals (http://www.itcs.com/topten/)
- Yanoff List: Scott Yanoff's Special Internet Connections listing of resources by subject (http://www.spectracom.com/islist/)
The practice of making lists is an old one on the Internet. This section provides you with a selection of these kinds of lists; you'll find each one provides a different way to look at the Internet and what it offers; these are not strict categorizations of all the possible subjects on the Internet (see the Subject section for that) but are eclectic selections of what is significant for a variety of audiences or to the list's editor.
- Subjects
- December Top 5 Subjects: the top five Web subject resources available, from December Communications (http://www.december.com/web/top/subject.html)
-
Yahoo WWW Directories: This is Yahoo's subcategory on WWW directories; includes links to subject-oriented directories on the Web (http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Searching_the_Web/Directories/)
------ Subject Trees
- A2Z: descriptions of most popularly linked sites in the Lycos database arranged by subjects (http://a2z.lycos.com)
- Argus Clearinghouse: The site formerly known as The Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides at the School of Information and Library Studies, University of Michigan; new site now the Argus Clearinghouse, offering a large selection of guides to Internet resources in a variety of categories (http://www.clearinghouse.net)
- Cyberstacks: a collection of Web and Internet resources categorized using the Library of Congress classification scheme, organized under one or more relevant Library of Congress class numbers and an associated publication format and subject description; resources incorporated are monographic or serial works, files, databases or search services, all listed resources are full-text, hypertext, or, hypermedia, and of a research or scholarly nature (http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/)
- Galaxy: a service of EINet, a collection of information, searchable via index or by topic trees (http://www.einet.net/galaxy.html)
- Gopher Jewels: a collection of subject-oriented gophers (http://galaxy.einet.net/GJ/index.html)
- INFOMINE: a tree of annotated and indexed Internet resources on biology, agriculture, medicine, government, maps, physical sicnes, engineering, computing, math, social sicne, humanities, visual and performing arts, instructional resources, and Internet enabling tools, from the University Library, University of California, Riverside (http://lib-www.ucr.edu)
- InterNIC Dir of Dirs: InterNIC's Directory of Directories, subject-oriented listing of registered Internet resources and services (http://ds.internic.net/ds/dsdirofdirs.html)
- IWT Narrative: Internet Web Text's narrative about subject-oriented searching (http://www.december.com/web/text/nar-subject.html)
- Magellan McKinley Directory: includes star ratings for resources (http://www.mckinley.com)
- Point Communications: a guide to Web resources with ratings (http://www.pointcom.com)
- Starting Point: a subject-breakdown of the Net (http://www.stpt.com)
- Study Carrels: Subject and Discipline-Specific Internet Resources, from North Carolina State University Library (http://dewey.lib.ncsu.edu/disciplines/index.html)
- Top of the Web: a selected list of the five best resource sites in a variety of subject categories, including science, humanities, news, business, lookup tools, marketing, money, computers, software, art, humanities, and others (http://www.december.com/web/top.html)
- USENET Periodic Postings: list of Usenet periodic postings (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/)
- USENET repository: collection of FAQ's and files from Usenet newsgroups (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/)
- USENET news.answers: a hypertext presentation of the answer lists posted in the news.answers newsgroup (http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/)
- Xplore: the motto is less is more; this is a selected subject tree of twenty categories; makes a nice exploration of an eclectic mix of some of the more interesting sites on the web (http://www.xplore.com)
- Yahoo: Yet Another Hierarchically Odiferous Oracle, an extendible collection of subjects (http://www.yahoo.com)
- Yanoff: Scott Yanoff's Special Internet Connections listing of resources by subject (http://www.uwm.edu/Mirror/inet.services.html)
- WebCrawler Select: selected sites in a range of subject areas (http://www.webcrawler.com)
- WWW VL: World Wide Web Virtual Library, a large hypertext collection of information organized by subject (http://www.w3.org/vl/)
- WWW VL/LOC: The World-Wide Web Virtual Library viewed as US Library of Congress Classification (http://www.w3.org/vl/LibraryOfCongress.html)
Searching by subject is one of the main ways that you might try to locate information on the Internet. Subject libraries are among the oldest kinds of repositories for information on the Internet. Not all follow a strict scheme for breaking down subjects; most also provide some sort of search facility for their own database.
------ Lists of Subject Trees
- Keyword
- All-in-one: a search page which combines forms-based search tools from a wide variety of subjects, classified by category
-
December Top 5 Keywords: the top five Web keyword searching resources available, from December Communications (http://www.december.com/web/top/keyword.html)
------ Keyword Searching Resources
- Accufind: searches infobases, news, books, and the Internet (http://nln.com)
- AIRSII: Arachnae Information Retreival System II; (http://www.arachnae.com/UofT.html)
- ALIWEB: Archie-Like Indexing for the Web, by Martijn Koster (http://web.nexor.co.uk/aliweb/doc/aliweb.html)
- Alta Vista: Search the Web or Usenet for keywords. Includes advanced query form. (http://www.altavista.digital.com)
- Apollo: search for services, retailers and classifieds (http://apollo.co.uk)
- Archieplex: Archie via Web--access archie servers (search ftp sites) via the web (http://web.nexor.co.uk/archie.html)
- Botspot: History of the Net always included Bots and they have been successfully utilized with human computer interaction starting with Eliza in 1966 (http://www.botspot.com)
- CUSI: configurable unified search interface; a forms-based interface into many indices, engines, and Web Spider databases (forerunner is SUSI), by Martijn Koster (http://web.nexor.co.uk/public/cusi/doc/list.html)
- Cyber411: an integrated 'parallel' search engine (http://www.cyber411.com/search/)
- Dejanews: search Usenet news articles (http://www.dejanews.com/forms/dnquery.html)
- Discussion groups: search a list of discussion groups, Bitnet and Internet interest groups (Dartmouth list) (http://a/Inter-Links/cgi-bin/lists)
- Excite: allows you to search the Web or Usent by keyword or concept (http://www.excite.com)
- External info: collects some of the most useful search engines available on the WWW (http://www_is.cs.utwente.nl:8080/cgi-bin/local/nph-susi1.pl)
- Gopher Jewels Search: Search the Gopher Jewels (a collection of subject-oriented gophers) (http://galaxy.einet.net/gopher/gopher.html)
- HotBot: Wired's entry into the keyword search business; 'cool' graphics; klunky interface; no filtering make this HotBot pretty cool (http://www.hotbot.com)
- Hytelnet Web search: search all Hytelnet resource entries, via a web form, from Galaxy (http://galaxy.einet.net/hytelnet/HYTELNET.html)
- Infoseek: a keyword searching service ($) over WWW pages, Usenet, computer magazines, newspaper newsires, press releases, company profiles, moview reviews, technical support databases (http://www.infoseek.com)
- Internet Sleuth: collected keyword search services (http://www.isleuth.com)
- Navigate.net: keyword search of the Web, includes options for title, description, keywords, and URL (http://www.navigate.net)
- NlightN: a database of databases, news, and Internet (http://www.nlightn.com)
- Open Text Index: search the web for a word or phrase (http://opentext.uunet.ca:8080/omw.html)
- Reference.com: provides keyword search of Usenet news (http://www.reference.com)
- SavvySearch: Parallel Internet Query Engine (http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~dreiling/smartform.html)
- Uncover: index to thousands of periodicals (http://www.carl.org/uncover/unchome.html)
- Web Catalog/CUI: is a collection of URL references built from a number of hand-crafted HTML lists, from Centre Universitaire d'Informatique, l'Universite de Geneve (http://cuiwww.unige.ch/w3catalog)
- Web publishers: keyword search of Web-related resources and discussion (http://www.verity.com/vlibsearch.html)
- Web Search Engines: a meta-index of search engines on the Web, with a forms interface, from Centre Universitaire d'Informatique, l'Universite de Geneve (http://cuiwww.unige.ch/meta-index.html)
- Web Spiders info: search the web for information about resources, collecting information into a database which can be queried; e.g., Web Crawler, Web Nomad, Web Worm, RBSE database, Lycos (Araneida, Lycosidae, Lycosa), Harvest Brokers; entry from Internet Tools Summary (http://www.december.com/net/tools/nir-tools-spiders.html)
- Web Spiders: Wanderers, Spiders and Robots; includes list of known robots/spiders, guidelines, standard for robot exclusion, by Martijn Koster (http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/robots.html)
Keyword searching is a very important strategy for finding a particular piece of information online. These resources provide a variety of ways to search the information spaces of the Internet and the Web.
------ Collections of Lists
- Spaces
- FTP Sites list: list of Internet sites accepting anonymous ftp, maintained by Perry Rovers (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/)
- FTP Sites Web: Web interface to Perry Rover's FTP site monster list (http://www.info.net/Public/ftp-list.html)
- Gopher Sites: list of all gophers (long) (ftp://liberty.uc.wlu.edu/pub/lawlib/all.gophers.links)
- Hytelnet/WWW: access to Hytelnet by Peter Scott (http://library.usask.ca/hytelnet/)
- WWW Servers/list: Wandex's list of WWW sites (http://www.netgen.com/cgi/wandex)
- WWW Servers/geo: a long list of registered WWW servers listed geographically by continent and country (http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Servers.html)
- WWW Sites(CityLink): state and city web sites (http://www.neosoft.com/citylink/)
- WWW Sites(Virtual Tourist): a geographic map to aid in locating Web sites and other resources (http://www.vtourist.com/webmap)
- Web Sites(City Net): explore and browse resources by geography (continent, region, country, city) (http://www.city.net)
Another way of breaking up the information spaces of the Internet is by protocol. Here, you'll find lists of servers of a particular protocol type.
- People
- Ahoy: integrated tool for finding personal home pages, using OKRA, WhoWhere?, and Internet Address Finder; institutional database from Yahoo! (http://ahoy.cs.washington.edu:6060)
- 555-1212: look up area codes, country codes, email addresses, phone numbers and web sites by area code (http://www.555-1212.com)
- ATT 800: American Telephone and Telegraph Toll Free Directory (http://www.tollfree.att.net/dir800/)
- BigBook: directory of businesses, including maps, and user ratings (http://www.bigbook.com)
- BigFoot: search for people by name in a dabase of email addresses (http://www.bigfoot.com)
- BigYellow: online Yellow Pages and shopping directory containing names, addresses and telephone numbers of over 16 million businesses across the United States (http://www.bigyellow.com)
- ClassMates: find high school alumni and friends; upgraded membership requires a fee (http://www.classmates.com)
- Directory services: a collection of white pages servers to look up people (gopher://sipb.mit.edu/1B%3aInternet%20whois%20servers)
- Four11: Directory Services, a free and easy-to-use directory of online users and their e-mail addresses, from Four11 Directory Services (SLED) (http://www.four11.com)
- Global Yellow Pages: phone directories from around the world (http://www.globalyp.com/world.htm)
- Global X.500: gateway to directory services provided by many organizations (http://ds.internic.net/ds/dspgx500.html)
- GTE Superpages: interactive yellow pages from GTE (http://yp.gte.net)
- Home Pages/directories: a collection of personal home pages lists and directories (http://www.december.com/cmc/info/1997/culture-people-lists.html)
- International Directories: a collection of white and yellow pages telephone directories available on the web for many countries in the world (http://www.infobel.be/infobel/infobelworld.html)
- IAF: Internet Address Finder, a comprehensive e-mail white pages on the Internet (http://www.iaf.net)
- InfoSpace: a directory of businesses, phones, yellow, blue, and white pages for US, Canda, and other countries; integration with mapping service (http://www.infospace.com)
- Knowbot: provides a uniform user interface to heterogeneous remote information services (Internic Point of contacts, MCImail, x500 databases, finger, nwhois, etc.) (telnet://info.cnri.reston.va.us:185)
- Lookup!: searching for email based on a database (http://www.lookup.com/search.html)
- Lycos People Find: you can look up a person to find their address and phone number (http://www.lycos.com/pplfndr.html)
- Metroscope: metropolitan area Web sites (http://www.metroscope.com)
- Netfind: a simple Internet `white pages' user directory (http://www.december.com/net/tools/nir-utilities-netfind.html)
- Netpages: a phone-book style directory for the Internet, from Aldea Communications, Inc. (http://www.aldea.com/wwwindex.html)
- OKRA: a directory of people on the Net; search by name, keyword, organization, or keyword; you can register your entry (http://okra.ucr.edu/okra/)
- PeopleLink: notifies you when people you know are online and lets you communicate with them instantly; like real-time email or your own private chat room (http://www.peoplelink.com)
- SearchAmerica: searches databases for residential and business data; includes directory assistances and searching by name, address, or phone number; requires registration (http://www.searchamerica.com)
- Searching for people: a collection of resources to help you locate a specific person on the net (gopher://yaleinfo.yale.edu:7700/11/Internet-People)
- Switchboard: A database of names of individuals and businesses, with phone numbers and postal addresses; users can add their electronic mail address or a URL to their listing; very extensive (over 90 million entries) and nationwide; excellent for finding people who have telephones (those old-fashioned devices with keypads on them that people used to talk through to communicate with each other) (http://www.switchboard.com)
- US West Yellow Pages: (http://yp.uswest.com)
- US West White Pages: (http://usw.four11.com)
- Usenet: find people based on their Usenet posts (http://usenet-addresses.mit.edu)
- WhoWhere?: a comprehensive service for locating people and organizations on the Net; this is a vast collection--it will give you a lot of hits on a name; this is the directory to use for finding people who have an email account or a telephone (http://www.whowhere.com)
- Zip2: search for businesses by category, business name, city, by map area, or by distance from any location (http://www.zip2.com)
You can find people on the Net through directories of white pages (which now include Internet-accessible telephone databases) and yellow pages (which commonly list businesses based on subject, topic, or product categories). These resources should help you find nearly anyone who has either an email address or a telephone.
This section gives you resources to help you find specific information online.