The End of the Zeal Directory

Unfortunately, it appears that LookSmart is closing the Zeal Directory. An announcement on the Zeal message board notes, "Thank you for being a part of the Zeal community and contributing your time and knowledge to the Directory. After trying to put the deserved resources behind Zeal, we have made the conscious decision to shut down Zeal.com. On March 28, 2006 Zeal will no longer be available. We are not selling Zeal.com and have no future plans for it at this time. "

This is too bad. Zeal was an excellent resource for finding good quality information on the web. The Zeal community was lively, interested in doing quality work, and helpful to newcomers. The tools for editors were first rate and made editing at DMOZ and Joeant appear Byzantine in comparison.

Clearly, web directories are not as valuable as they once were. Google is much better at finding information than any directory. However, I still use directories to find good sites. There is still value in them. And I think user contributed directories like Zeal, DMOZ, and Joeant are the best type to use. I point them out to students in every library instruction session I teach.

For Zealots looking for another community to contribute at, I would recommend Joeant or Illumirate. Both communities are small with instant feedback on editing. People will help you learn the community. DMOZ may also be worth a try but it is much larger, the editing is not intuitive, and the community is highly political. Many new editors are simply overwhelmed and give up. Take it slow if you are allowed to edit at DMOZ and ask for help if you need it as unsolicited advice is not always forthcoming.

Maybe directories are not worth contributing to anymore. Perhaps social bookmarking at sites like del.icio.us or Furl is the way to go? I am wedded to the past and I will stay active in a web directory or two. I enjoy it. But I realize the heyday of directories is over and my web editing only really helps me to keep my own cataloging skills sharp.

I hope LookSmart eventually sells Zeal to someone who will reopen it and allow the community to participate. (Maybe a university or library should acquire it?)

International Information Literacy Resources Directory

International Information Literacy Resources Directory. Are you looking for some good information literacy material to use or modify for your students? Do you have a nice information literacy resource you want to show off? If so, this site is for you.

There are currently 90 resources cataloged in this IFLA database. The project is being coordinated by Jesús Lau of the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico.

From the site:

The Information Literacy Section of the International Federation of Library Association and Institutions (IFLA) has created this database to record information literacy materials from different parts of the world, on behalf of UNESCO.

Librarians, educators and information professionals are invited to participate.

If you have developed information literacy materials and would like to share them with the world community, please submit the required data.

Quotes at Uncover the Net

Quotes at Uncover the Net. This is a new feature at the Uncover the Net Web Directory. It is a collection of quotes. There are over 30 categories including leadership, religion, sports, and movies. This is a good resource and may prove useful to many librarians.

Here are a few quotes from the leadership category:

Leadership is action, not position.By Donald H. McGannon on Action

The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.By Elaine Agather on Bones

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.By Jesse Jackson on Bringing People Together

It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.By Adlai Stevenson on Calvary

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.By George S. Patton on Delegating

Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.By Robert Half on Delegating

SkaffeKids.com Web Search. This is a neat little human edited directory of the Web. The special niche of this directory is sites for children and teens. As I have two boys (6 and 2) I appreciate sites like this that take the time to find content which is decent for kids.

Sample Categories:

School Time
Family Life
Kidz Art
Kids News

Library Reference Search

Library Reference Search. I redid my Web Directory over the weekend. I am using a script to provide a copy of the Open Directory Project. It works well and I think many librarians would find this to be a nice Web Directory. Please take it for a test run if you have a chance.

This site has a strange history:

This site has been through many versions. It started in 1999 as a free e-mail service for librarians which flopped. It then offered a meta search engine created by everyone.net. Unfortunately, that search tool turned into nothing but pay-per-click garbage. Later, I used some code to turn this into an Open Directory Project clone. Unfortunately, that code was real good at delivering ads but very poor at actually displaying ODP data.

Despite all of this, Google likes this site. As of February 2005, it has a PR of 7 and is strongly themed as a Web Directory. It gets over ten thousand visitors a month to the index page alone. As such, I felt obligated to turn this site into a real working ODP clone to give those visitors a quality reference source.

Thanks to Shawn Walters at Uncover the Net for helping to get the script up and working at Library Reference Search.

A couple of sample categories:

Information Literacy
Library Instruction
Colleges and Universities
Michigan
Books

Plus over 600,000+ additional categories and more than 4 million sites...

MeL Best of the Internet

MeL Best of the Internet. This is a Web directory created by librarians working with the Michigan Electronic Library. There are over 20,000 listings with annotations. The sites are also divided by category. As I work with several Web Directories (DMOZ, Zeal, Joeant, Uncover, and a few more) I know how hard it is to build and maintain a quality Web directory. This one is well done and I commend MeL for having it.

However, I am really bothered by the ways links are listed. Instead of listing the actual url, the sites are hidden behind a redirect link. For example, the excellent history site History of Nations is listed as http://web.mel.org/weblink.jsp?resourceid=151398&refTopic=0&topic=345&URL=[[[http://www.historyofnations.net/]]]. The real url is http://www.historyofnations.net/.

The problem with this is that Google, Yahoo, and other search engine spiders do not see the real url. As such, the listed site gets no credit by these search engines for being listed by MeL. And as Google and Yahoo both use the quantity and quality of links a site has to determine the algorithms for search results, a listing at MeL does not help at all. And that is too bad. This is a spam proof resource and exactly the type of site the search engines like to give a lot of weight and trust.

I think the value judgements of Michigan librarians who have built MeL are worthwhile and we ought to be willing to share them with the whole world by allowing their efforts to directly influence search engine results. Take down the walls! I hope MeL redoes this resource to allow for the direct listing of urls.

Info Web World Directory

Info Web World Directory. I just noticed this Web directory the other day. The layout is easy to follow and some of my search terms brought good results. (A few others didn't...) This is a free submit directory. This means non-profit sites are more likely to submit and be included. It also means tons of spam for the directory editors. The ontology of the category structure is a bit confusing at some places but on the whole I like the look of this directory.

From the site:

The main reason behind this is about providing a directory of quality sites for Internet users. Our goal is to list the best sites for a wide variety of topics giving our users the most relevant results for their searches.

It is our goal in building the most comprehensive resource on the Internet, and our goal to share it with the rest of the people, that is driving us forward. We do not make any commercial profit from this activity, and we cannot provide money as a way of appreciation for your hard work. Your knowledge and time towards our community is valuable to make our directory one of the best for the user who is seeking information.

We do not promote rank or position or optimize your site for search engines. Although we offer a search query, the purpose of this directory is to list and categorize web sites. This is just a data provider for the users for their benefit and not a search engine.

To that end, InfoWebWorld Web Directory has persistently pursued innovation and pushed the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use search service that can be accessed from anywhere. This made us to come out with this directory.

UTN Directory Blog

UTN Directory Blog. I noted last month that I had began editing at a new Web directory. It is Uncover the Net. The directory has it's own blog. I made my first post there yesterday as an editor. The Uncover database continues to grow and I expect that in the next year it will become a major directory. Regardless, I will probably post a few times a month on the UTN Blog. These posts will largely deal with search engines and Web directory issues. Or, I might just post the information at my main blog "The Information Literacy Land of Confusion" with a note at the UTN Blog to come here if they want to read an interesting post. :]

WebAtlas Web Directory. This is a newer Web directory. There is not a lot here yet but I think it has the potential to be a good resource someday. I asked the site owner (Nandini Maheshwari) to let me know what is unique about the WebAtlas directory that sets it off from the rest. Why would a librarian visit it?

She replied:

I guess there are a few things that help set Web Atlas apart from most other directories...

1.) We hand coded it from scratch. This means that the code should be quick running.
2.) We worked hard to create a clean layout without much random distracting stuff.
3.) We give each listed site its own page and allow them to link to 4 interior pages on their personal page to help point out various useful parts of larger websites.
4.) While our business model is as a paid directory we have paid editors who also try to add many new sites free each day.

I think the last part there is key. Lots of people are creating directories now with the idea of getting rich by charging site owners for inclusion. These sites don't work well as a general Web resource though as most of the really good information sites are not commerical in nature and they will not pay to be included. Good Web directories are balanced between commercial and non-commercial content. Those directories that forget this will not be used by anyone. If WebAtlas can keep adding good non-commercial content, it can become a good reference tool. I wish Nandini luck.

The Electric Eclectic. This is a fun little collection of 3000+ links arranged by subject and title. It is maintained by Jim Eccleston. Evidently, he adds useful sites as he finds them. I enjoyed browsing his collection.

Sample categories:

History
Philosophies
Women

Uncover the Net: Web Directory - This is a new web directory launched just this last week. As it is new, it doesn't have a lot of listings yet but it is quickly growing.

This site does charge for listings which can be problematic for finding non-commercial sites. (I railed against this practice just a few posts back for this at some other sites.) However, I have been in contact with the site owner and he has been very amendable to adding free listings for sites which are primarily non-commercial and information packed. This could turn out to be a great directory. Look it over, come back a few months from now, and check it out again and see if it is a decent resource.

SevenSeek and Bluefind. Here are two web directories I do not recommend. They charge for listings. This is fine if you see web directories as a means of advertising but if you think these sort of sites should exist to help searchers find the best information then it is pretty bad. It is quite simple how this works. Those trying to make money on the Web will pay for a listing. Those promoting free sites will not pay and will not even know in many cases they need to "promote" a site. Hence, these directories become overtly commercial and are of no real use for those trying to find free information.

What is unfortunate is that Google has awarded these two sites an inordinately high PageRank. (If you have the Google Toolbar you can see this.) This means that links from these sites actually help in getting ranked higher in the Google search results. This then tilts Google towards commercial sites. Google should downgrade the PR of these two sites. A link here only means someone is willing to buy an ad.

Using IllumiRate to Teach Students About Evaluating Web Resources. This is a new lesson plan at LI.Com co-wrote by Barbara York and myself. It is based on the successful Joeant assignment I have used in the past rewritten for use with the Illumirate web directory. I am going to assign this next week and see how it goes. I believe that this assignment will do a good job of making students think about web sites.

From the site:

Teaching students to evaluate the Web can be hard. Despite repeated lectures, students tend to use whatever information is easiest to find. As the Web is easy to use, and since bad site owners have a knack for optimizing for search engines, this usually means the students often use Web sources of questionable quality.

There are several volunteer created Web directories online. These are excellent places to find some of the better resources on the Internet as all entries in the database will have been reviewed by humans. This kills much of the spam.

Most students would benefit from volunteering to edit at one of these volunteer directories. Learning the criteria for the selection of sites and learning how to write an informative description for them would invariably help students learn to evaluate sites better. Unfortunately, most of the volunteer directories would be difficult to access for class purposes. For example, most students would be rejected on their first attempt to edit at the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org) and the time required to pass all the required tests at Zeal (http://www.zeal.com) would make it hard to give students a Zeal based assignment.

IllumiRate (http://www.illumirate.com) is an easy to use site that allows all new editors accepted into the program to add, rate, and critique sites in any area of its directory. In addition, the volunteers at IllumiRate give quick and friendly feedback to new editors allowing individuals to learn the basic elements of editing at the directory fairly quickly. As such, it is an ideal setting for giving students an assignment working on a volunteer directory.

IllumiRate Directory | Education & Science | Research References & Resources | Libraries | I am sure most librarians and educators are not using the Illumirate directory. I blogged the main site 8 months ago. It is a user edited directory which has some good content. I have decided to feature the library category at Illumirate today. It is in decent shape but could use some work. Many libraries and library associations are missing. Why not volunteer and add some sites? If you do, you will help to make the Web an easier place to search.

Open Directory - Society: History: By Time Period: Ancient: Rome: People: Roman Emperors I have created a new category for Roman Emperors at the Open Directory Project. I have made subcats for about 18 emperors with the intent of adding categories for another 30. It is amazing how many sites are out there for even minor rulers like Galba or Otho. Anyway, I hope this librarian has made it easier to find good sites on Roman Emperors on the Web.

Ajdee Internet Directory This web directory has a plan for making money from site owners while still allowing non-profit sites a way in. Commercial sites must pay $25 to be reviewed. Non-profit sites only have to pay $1. Why a dollar? It keeps spam out. Unethical web owners who are trying to get crap sites listed (or get the same site listed under different urls) probably will not give their credit card numbers and pay a dollar. Most legit non-profit webmasters will. The result means Ajdee can make money off of commercial sites and still give non-profit sites an avenue in without opening the doors to spam.

This is a great idea. I hope Ajdee does well. Yahoo, take note. Maybe you can charge non-profit sites a nominal fee to get reviewed? $299 is too steep when your site is not designed to generate income. Those non-profit sites are usually what your searchers want anyway.

Bibliographic Instruction I haven't plugged Joeant in a while. This is a nice spam free directory of the Web which is built by volunteers. I am highlighting the Bibliographic Instruction category but most are pretty solid. I am of course a Joeant editor (Level 22) and am a bit biased but if you have some free time you might want to register as an editor and start adding sites you like.

Other sample categories:

Education
Presidents
Weblogs
Meta Search Engines
Personal Homepages

SearchMonster.Org This is another directory of the Web which uses volunteers to help build it. One problem I see is that only editors get free listings of their sites. Everyone else has to pay $30. Won't this skew the directory towards commerical sites? (Most of the time, searchers aren't looking to buy...) Regardless, I am supportive of all attempts to categorize the Web by human effort. It really does cut down on spam in search results.

Sample category:

Reference > Education

I am happy to say that Yahoo has finally added my personal home page and my Library Instruction site to their directory. They can be found in the Society and Culture > People > Personal Home Pages > L category and the Reference > Libraries > Professional Resources > Library Instruction category. I have been trying for years to get these added. Unfortunately, my submissions have been ignored until now. (And I refused to pay $299 to get my sites reviewed. Why should I? They are not commercial...) I guess the moral of this story is if you are willing to keep submitting a good site to Yahoo, eventually they will add it for free.

Yahoo! Directory Librarians Just a note that this blog is now listed in Yahoo in the Reference: Libraries: Librarian category. Thanks Yahoo.