Webupon

Whether one is looking for articles for medical, academic or just plain curious, one way to find information is by using a basic search engine; however, if one is searching for information on a specific topic and wants to get direct to the point information, one needs to use a subject directory. However, which ones to choose and why can be difficult, so I compiled a list of the most commonly used ones and few hidden gems I found on the internet.

• Librarians’ Internet Index (LII) – Over 20,000 articles compiled by public librarians with completely reliable sources
• INFOMINE (Infomine.) – over 250,000 articles compiled by academic librarians, all reliable sources. We are talking college level information here. Want an A or a raise, this is a great sight for well researched information and all was written by experts
• About.com (About.) – With nearly 2 million articles, About.com is one of the leading subject directories. These articles are written by people with experience in the area in which they write
• Google Directory (Google Directory) – With well over 5 million articles, this is by far the leader in subject directories. This is of course enhanced by the Google search engine, which means more results on the chosen topic of research
• Yahoo Directory (Yahoo Directory.) – With just over 4 million articles, Yahoo offers up lots of useful information. The only draw back is that this subject directory really works best with popular topics, not vague ones

How to Use a Subject Directory

With literally thousands of subject directories on every subject one can think of and the ones listed above can be one’s only subject directories or your starting point to finding even more. To find more, simply use one of the subject directories listed above to search for more, for example use Google or Yahoo by typing in “web directories” next to the topic of your choice (i.e. wedding web directories).

In Librarians’ Index or INFOMINE just search for your topic like you normally would on a regular search engine and keep your eyes open for anything that looks like a directory, you can do this by reading the descriptions, (i.e. Directories, Virtual Libraries, Gateway Pages).

On About.com, search for your topic and keep your eyes open for words such as “101”, “guides” or “directory”.

All these sources are more reliable than the widely used Wikipedia, which is user-written. Experts in the field write all the articles found in subject directories.