Web Directories

Like the Web Indexes, the Web Directories relied on real live humans to review and categorize the webpages into a searchable database. However, in the case of the Web Directories, that was done by trained reference librarians.

Most of the Web Directories were supported by large universities or grant funding and were offered as a free service to the educational community. When using these directories, you didn't have to dodge pop-up ads and wade through pages of paid commericial listings. In most cases they offered a handful of top quality, educationally relevant sites with proven educational value.

Sadly, as funding sources dried up, several of these very useful web directories are no longer available.

We'll explore two of the surviving web directories: The WWW Virtual Library and the Internet Public Library. We will bid farewell to InfoMine and BUBL. Again... I'm sorry to see them go as they were incredibly useful sources of relevant academic information.

Next: The WWW Virtual Library