WEBSITES: Four Serious and One for Fun

What’s New on the Web

http://www.library.uq.edu.au/internet/new/webnew.html

This site lists some of the new sites and tools available on the Web. Categories include: Reference Tools and Services, Social Sciences and Humanities, Biological and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, Electronic Journals, and Reference Tools and Services. It is compiled by the Library at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and uses a variety of sources, usually including FreePint, elogon from ILANET, Internet Research News (researchbuzz), Internet Resources Newsletter, LIIWEEK from Librarians' Index to the Internet, Neat Net Tricks, the ResourceShelf, and the Scout Report.


Internet Resources Newsletter

http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/

This monthly newsletter from Roddy MacLeod, Catherine Ure and Marion Kennedy, Heriot-Watt University Library, Edinburgh, Scotland, contains information and reviews of new and notable Web sites, press releases, network news, news of blogs and RSS, book reviews, and more. The newsletter is free and is distributed to over 38,000 readers. You can sign up on the website.


Resource Discovery Network

http://www.rdn.ac.uk/

“The Resource Discovery Network is the UK's free national gateway to Internet resources for the learning, teaching and research community. The service currently links to more than 100,000 resources via a series of subject-based information gateways (or hubs).” Gateways include: arts and creative industries; hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism; engineering, mathematics and computing; humanities; geography and environment; physical sciences; health, medicine and life sciences; social science, business and law.

“In contrast to search engines, the RDN gathers resources which are carefully selected by subject specialists in our partner institutions. You can search and browse through the resources, and be confident that your results will connect you to Web sites relevant to learning, teaching and research in your subject area.

“The RDN is a collaboration of over seventy educational and research organisations, including the Natural History Museum and the British Library and is a JISC service with support from ESRC and AHRC.”


DLIST: Digital Library of Information Science and Technology
http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/

DLIST “is a cross-institutional, subject-based, open access digital archive for the Information Sciences, including Archives and Records Management, Library and Information Science, Information Systems, Museum Informatics, and other critical information infrastructures.”

It is supported by the School of Information Resources and Library Science and Learning Technologies Center, University of Arizona.


Uchronia: The Alternate History List

http://www.uchronia.net/

This site consists of a searchable annotated bibliography of over 2700 novels, stories, essays and other printed material involving the "what ifs" of history. It is a creation of Robert Schmunk of New York, New York, USA. What ifs include: if Oswald had missed, if Germany had won World War II, if Marilyn Monroe had been elected President of the USA, and many more. Absolutely fascinating.


Thanks to Kerry Webb, author of the Webb's web column in inCite, the monthly journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, for finding these neat sites.