Summary of selection criteria

Fellow maintainers,

Here's a summary of the responses I received. Thanks to those of you
who sent in your criteria.

Sam 

>What types of selection criteria do others use to decide which sources to
>include in the Virtual Libraries you maintain? If you send me your comments
>I will post a summary. Thanks.
>
>Dr. Samuel R. Brown
>WWW Virtual Library: Sociology
>e-mail: brown@murray.fordham.edu
>Department of Sociology and Anthropology
>Fordham University
>Bronx, NY  10458
>(718) 817-3869

===========================================================================
From: T.Matthew Ciolek <tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au>

I maintain
--------
a) Social Sciences WWW VL
b) Asian Studies WWW VL
c) Tibetan Studies WWW VL
d) Aboriginal Studies WWW VL
e) Buddhist Studies WWW VL

Selection meta-criteria
-----------------
1) if there is a lack of information in given area - any online site will do
2) links to inadequate sites are continuously replaced with ones leading to 
better & richer equivalent sites

Selection criteria
-----------------
a) site provides factual information (mere opinions, literature, 
ideologies etc. are out)
b) site provides original information (= does nor replicate inf.available 
elsewhere)
c) site provides with their own information are oprefferd to sites and links 
to other sites
d) it is  primarely  www althoug gopher or ftp sites are also considered
e) information is well organised and presented
f) information is attributable to an author and/or editor
g) the link to the site is reasonably fast and stable
h) site is frequently updated, improved and enlarged  (in other words I tend 
to establish links to electronic equivalents of  libraries and 
encyclopedias -  as opposed to electronic equivalents of posters, leaflets or 
poststamps)


see also 
-----
<A HREF="http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/QLTY/FlopMaker.html">Top 
10 Ways to Make Your WWW Service a Flop</A>(ANU,Australia)
<A HREF="http://coombs.anu.edu.au//SpecialProj/QLTY/QltyTruisms.html">Quality 
Info.Systems - Catalogue of Potent Truisms </A> (ANU,Australia)

===========================================================================
From: nb2@eiffel.ce.gatech.edu (Nelson C. Baker)

I do two things.  First I only include other URL's of sites where the
maintainer has given me permission to list the site.  Second, I browse
the site to make sure that it is viewable and contains information related
to my VL in this case Civil Engineering.  I'd be interested in seeing
what others do.

============================================================================

From: thartley@uconnvm.uconn.edu (Thomas Hartley)

So far, we have included everyone who requested inclusion.  When the page
becomes too large to proceed in this way, I plan to create (or try to
find other people to create) separate but related pages.  

===========================================================================

>From: "CyberWeb" <web@sowebo.charm.net>

	Relevance, Accessibility, and Quality.

	I occasionally get requests to link to flower shops/record stores/etc,
	which I ignore. They have evidently never even visited my site.

	I visit all sites before linking them. If I can't access them then
	they won't get linked.

	I add any introductory paragraph to my URLs db so that annotation about
	the site is available.

	I try not to be too judgemental about site quality if it has something
	useful to offer; but just once or twice the presentation was too bad.

	I get most sites myself through newsgroup, mailing lists and surfing
	but I plan on doing less of that as the volume of link requests
	increases.

=============================================================================

From: Jonathan.Bowen@comlab.oxford.ac.uk

1. Whether a proper URL is supplied.
2. Whether the URL works!
3. Whether the material is relevant.
4. How well the material is organized.
5. How good the links are to further relevant information.
6. How well laid out the pages are.
7. How fast the page loading is.
8. How considerate and well thought out the use of graphics is.
9. Whether I have heard of the organization previously.
   (This may speed my response if so.)
10. Whether I have the time to spare!!

===========================================================================

From: Dave <valiant@mordor.com>

I use anything that I can find which I have verified as being current and 
working. (Automotive).

I would like someday to swtich to noncommercial, but in this area, that's 
probably hard to separate. Maybe I will sooner or later switch to a core 
view -- automotive rather than auto acccessories.

===========================================================================

From: "John Lock" <jlock@mindspring.com>

I maintain the "Beer & Brewing" section of WWW V-Lib and use the 
following criteria in deciding which resources to list:

1) I try to only include links to pages that contribute something of
substance to the overall topic.  I get a lot of requests for listing
pages that are nothing more than a collection of links to other pages,
most of which are already in the library.  I prefer links that provide
some useful content.

2) Commercial or advertising pages are placed in their own category.  
Related to that, I avoid pages that "appear" to represent a company, but 
are merely published by an individual who likes their product(s).

3) I reject all pages that encourage alcohol abuse.

4) I don't list pages that represent a conflict of interest.  For 
example, I was recently requested to list a page for a small branch of 
a larger organization which does not have a WWW presence.  The "head 
office" e-mailed me requesting the branch office page not be listed 
for two reasons:
     a) The head office was in the process of establishing their WWW 
           presence and wanted to have editorial control of branch pages.
     b) The branch page did not present the appropriate image that the 
           head office was trying to maintain.
I e-mailed back stating that I would not list the page until the two
parties could come to an agreement.

==========================================================================

From: jesper.weissglas@mikrolit.se (Jesper Weissglas)

I look at the suggested site, and anything that I find matches
my subject (Furniture & Interior design) gets added...

(I have divided the sites into Academic, Commercial and a few others...)

==================================================================

From: stein@wiz.uni-kassel.de (Thomas Stein)

Running the WWW VL IRRIGATION I try to include all sources of real
information (on-line information) excluding pages which just keep information 
like addresses to write to or so. Unfortunaltely it is not allways
possible to stick to that as relatively little irrigation information is 
available on the net.

Received on Monday, 8 May 1995 02:14:41 UTC