Scout Project - A Directory
The Scout Archives http://scout.wisc.edu/Archives/index.php is a directory of websites that have been reviewed by subject experts and classified by subject, using the Library of Congress subject headings. The compilation is organized by the University of Wisconsin, with funding from the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
The quality of the indexed resources appears to be top-notch, and using it I found websites such as http://www.lostindiana.net which I had unsuccessfully sought with Google (I was looking for "forgotten Indiana" and could not find the relevant site).
The weakness of having humans compile subject directories is that coverage is very selective, and this tool today has less then 17,000 webpages indexed, compared with Google's claimed 4 billion. And though the project maintains a current blog listing newly added resources, the humans on the project are apparently not taking the time to run a "link checker" to verify that websites have remainded at the same URL over time - when I sought for entries on the subject of "Indiana", over half of the results, when followed, resulted in a "404 error", meaning that the website was not able to be found at the cited address.
-DD
The quality of the indexed resources appears to be top-notch, and using it I found websites such as http://www.lostindiana.net which I had unsuccessfully sought with Google (I was looking for "forgotten Indiana" and could not find the relevant site).
The weakness of having humans compile subject directories is that coverage is very selective, and this tool today has less then 17,000 webpages indexed, compared with Google's claimed 4 billion. And though the project maintains a current blog listing newly added resources, the humans on the project are apparently not taking the time to run a "link checker" to verify that websites have remainded at the same URL over time - when I sought for entries on the subject of "Indiana", over half of the results, when followed, resulted in a "404 error", meaning that the website was not able to be found at the cited address.
-DD
posted by David Dial | 9:52 AM
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