Highlights from the Internet Librarian Conference

There are basically two types of Web content. The “surface” Web is the content that is made available to us through general search engines and many directories. The other type of content is the Invisible or Deep Web. These are the Web pages that, because of limited technology or cost, search engine software cannot access. 

The “surface” Web consists of approximately 2.5 billion documents. The Deep or Invisible Web contains over 550 billion documents. Not only does the Deep Web contain, by far, the greater number of Web Pages, it also contains much of the best. There is a vast amount of high quality information that is available on the Invisible Web. Much of the information is from academic, government, library and business sites or databases.

The size of the Web is being added to at a rate of 7.3 million pages a day. Experts say that it doubles every 3 – 8 months. With over 80% of Web content located in the Invisible or Deep Web it is important to know where to go to access it. Below are some sites for accessing the Deep Web.

 List of Invisible Web Sites:

InvisibleWeb – strong collections in business, industry, finance, company directories, stocks and small business – great for reference sources like encyclopedias, dictionaries, phone and email directories, and in-depth news – good personal and consumer information on shopping, investing, travel, hobbies, sports and entertainment – contains over 10,000 databases.
http://www.invisibleweb.com

direct search – good starting point for hidden content
 http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm

Librarians’ Index to the Internet – an annotated subject directory compiled by librarians for quality and usefulness of sites – the very best of the Internet.
http://www.lii.org

 Profusion -  search multiple ''invisible Web'' sources at the same time.
http://www.profusion.com

CompletePlanet – search 103,000 searchable databases and specialty search engines.
http://www.completeplanet.com

Infomine Multiple Database Search – focuses on academic/scholarly resource collections.
http://infomine.ucr.edu/search.phtml
 

Weblogs

Weblogs are web pages that are usually created with specialized soft ware.  The software allows users to create journals or logs that keep the entries in reverse chronological order.  Weblogs are used for everything from personal journals to business communication tools. Their use in education is growing. The Article  “Shall we Blog”  gives a good overview of weblogs.  It lists web sites  where you can  go to find blogs or to create them.
 

Cyber Safety

Concerned about online safety and privacy? Visit http://www.haltabuse.org
This site provides guidelines for staying safe on the Internet. To see these guidelines go to "Resources" and then "Online Safety" .
Other sites that might be useful are:
SpamCop                                      http://www.spamcop.net
CyberTipLine                                http://www.ncmec.org
The GuardianAngel.com                 http://www.theguardianangel.com
Urban Legends                              http://www.snopes2.com
Scambusters                                   http://www.scambusters.com
 

Internet Librarian Conference Presentations

http://www.infotoday.com/il2002/presentations/default.htm