Name of Site: The Internet Public Library

Site Sponsor:   “The Internet Public Library is an educational initiative of the University of Michigan School of Information and is sponsored by Bell and Howell Information and Learning.”

Cost of subscription: no subscription

Quality: (Fair, Good, Excellent) Excellent

Amount of on-line primary material: The Internet Public Library provides links to several web-sites containing complete on-line articles and books.

Description: Part of the mission statement of the Internet Public Library states: “The Internet Public Library is the first public library of the internet. As librarians, we are committed to providing valuable services to that world. We do so for many reasons: to provide library services to the Internet community, to learn and teach what librarians have to contribute in a digital environment, to promote librarianship and the importance of libraries, and to share interesting ideas and techniques with other libraries.” The opening screen of the Internet Public Library, or IPL for short, lists in its Collections the following search options Reference, Exhibits, Especially for Librarians, Magazines and Serials, Newspapers, Online Texts and Web Searching. In order to illustrate one way in which to use the IPL, I chose the IPL Reference Center. The Reference Center offers a variety of topics to select from including Education, Science and Technology, Computers and the Internet, Health and Medical Sciences, Law, Governing and Political Science, Business and Economics, Social Sciences, Entertainment and Leisure, Associations and last but not least Arts and Humanities. The Reference Center also provides a help desk and a list of IPL original reference sources, such as A + Research and Writing for High School and College Students, Native American Authors, Say Hello to the World, Web Searching and an Online Literary Criticism Collection. The Reference Center allows one to select any of the subjects listed on the. For example, I choose the Arts and Humanities reference. The Arts and Humanities reference offers very simplified definitions of subcategories of Arts and Humanities. One may click on any of the subcategories such as Fine Arts, History, Language and Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy and Religion and Theology. The Arts and Humanities reference screen also lists and provides links to other resources such as The New York Public Library Digital Library Collections, the WWW Virtual Library and the Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources to name only a few. Short descriptions of each reference is also provided, along with web-site addresses, the author’s name, the subject of the reference and any keywords that might help define the focus of the reference. From the Arts and Humanities reference screen I choose the Literature category. Here one finds subcategories of Literature, including Authors,

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Book Lists and Awards, Criticism, Literature by Time Period, Online Texts and Writing. Actual links to other web-sites are also listed, including for example the Cambridge History of English and American Literature, the Dictionary of Symbolism, Fairytales: Origins and Evolution, Glossary of Literary Theory, Literature Resources on the Net and The New York Times Book Review. Again a short description of the web-site, the author, the subject and keywords are provided. From here, I choose the Criticism reference. The Online Literary Criticism Collection contains 3,905 critical and biographical web-sites about authors and their works. However, the site does not attempt to be inclusive. The site instead collects evaluative and explanatory writings about works of literature written by scholars or graduate students or works professionally published in literary journals. Essays or articles written by individuals of unverifiable academic standing may be included if they meet certain requirements. The requirements are: the work must include a bibliography and or footnotes, illustrate good editing, possess a good web-site design and prove listing in other academically oriented literary collections. While in the Online Literary Criticism Collection screen one may browse by author, title, literary period or country. I choose American Literature from 1865-1900, which took me to a screen listing web-sites and specific works about American Literature during this time period. For example, I could have then chosen to view a complete online book titled Communities of Women: An Idea of Fiction. Once again such references provide a short description, an indication that this is a work of historical context, keywords, the author’s name and a bibliographical reference. The second kind of list on this screen is an author list of which I selected Kate Chopin. Next appeared a screen providing some general biographical information about Chopin. I could have then chosen to view a list of critical sites, biographical sites or specific sites concerning The Awakening and The Collected Stories of Kate Chopin.

There are a few other IPL collections one may find useful, such as: Online Newspapers, Online Serials, Online Texts and an IPL Teen Collection.

Evaluation: The IPL is a very helpful and well-organized site for research in many subjects, including literary research. The site offers an abundance of information concerning other resources and provides links to numerous web-sites one may find useful. It truly is like a library except of course one cannot always view entire texts. However, the IPL always provides bibliographic information and more often than not links to web- sites that may allow the viewing of complete articles and texts.

Summary Comment: While the description of the IPL sites list after list, which may initially appear somewhat confusing. However, the lists at each screen are what help define the possible informative options, thus providing focus for one’s research. The wonderful organization and accessibility of the IPL makes the web-site a perfect starting point for both deciding on a topic and then researching that topic. I personally found the IPL very useful both in helping me decide upon the direction of an essay as well as helping me develop a bibliography for that essay. LP