Web Subject Guides / Web Directories

These are directories of selected Web sites. For the most part, real-live people have chosen the links on these pages; they are not the machine-generated lists that you get from search engines. Search these sites when you are looking for a broad topic.

Many of these sites provide updates by e-mail or RSS.

This page:
Library-Style Subject Guides | Academic Subject Guides | Popular Subject Guides | Web for Kids

Library-Style Subject Guides

Web guides compiled by or for librarians or using library classification schemes. For how-to advice, see Cataloging the Internet.

• Infomine Scholarly Internet Resource Collections - Quality as well as quantity; uses Library of Congress subject headings (UC Riverside)
• IPL2 - "Information you can trust" (Internet Public Library)
• Subject Collections
• Pathfinders - Guides to specific subjects
• Michigan Electronic Library (MEL)
• Best Information on the Net (formerly Where the Wild Things Are: A Librarian's Guide)
• Internet Resources from College & Research Libraries News - Lists on selected topics
• Digital Librarian: A Librarian's Choice of the Best of the Web
• Librarians' Resource Centre (Special Libraries Association, Toronto Chapter)

• New York Public Library: Best of the Web
• Sage - Resources selected by librarians at UC San Diego. Some resources are restricted to UCSD.
• The Virtual Chase - "Teaching legal professionals how to do research." This site by a law librarian covers more than just legal research, including using search engines, researching companies, finding people, and finding factual information in many areas. Frequently updated.
• Virtual Reference Library - General collection of links with an emphasis on Ontario and Canada (Toronto Public Library)

Dewey Decimal Classification:

• Bulletin Board for Libraries (BUBL):
• BUBL Link: Catalogue of Internet Resources - Browse by Dewey class
• Also available as a subject hierarchy
• Cyberdewey
• Suite 101 - Like About.com, has editors for different subject pages
• Webrary by Morton Grove Public Library

Library of Congress Classification:

• CyberStacks (Gerry McKiernan, Iowa State)

Academic Subject Guides

• Academic Info - By former librarian Mike Madin
• Intute - Database of academic sites created by UK universities (Formerly Resource Discovery Network [RDN]) (What's this?)
• Pinakes - Links to some choice subject and general portals. Named for the catalog of the library at Alexandria. (UK)
• Encyclopædia Britannica's Internet Guide
• Telson Spur - An unusual arrangement of subjects
• UniGuide Academic Guide to the Internet
• WWW Virtual Library

Popular Subject Guides

• Yahoo! - The original and still the best at what it does
• Yahoo Directory - Go straight to the hand-picked good stuff. Read about new additions to major categories in RSS feeds
• Yahoo International - Sites focused on other countries and languages
• About.com (formerly the Mining Company) - No longer as great as it used to be; more than 300 pages have been cut
• LookSmart
• Open Directory Project - A collaborative Web directory assembled by volunteers (dmoz.org) (via xmlhub)
• Zenome

Web for Kids

• KidsClick - Sites chosen by librarians
• 4Kids.org
• Ask for Kids
• Blue Web'n - Web sites recommended for teachers and school librarians
• Great Web Sites for Kids (American Library Association)
• Internet Public Library (IPL2):
• KidSpace
• TeenSpace
• Mrs. Gray's Research Sites for Kids - A Google custom search engine that searches the major kids' sites
• ThinkQuest Library - A collection of 5,000 sites built by kids for kids as part of ThinkQuest's Internet Challenge
• Yahoo Kids