A wonderful definition of the web was offered by Michael Gorman in 1995: The net is like a huge vandalized library.
Someone has destroyed the catalog and removed the front matter, indexes etc. from hundreds of thousands of books
and torn and scattered what remains…"Surfing" is the process of sifting through this disorganized mess in the hope of
coming across some useful fragments of text and images that can be related to other fragments ("The Corruption
of Cataloging," (Library Journal 120 [15 September, 1995]:34).
I would only add that someone has also mixed into the mess a lot of self- generated, non-refereed material.
That is the reason why the ability to critique an electronic website is a key research skill.
An excellent guide to the critique of websites, a tutorial really, will be found at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
For this assignment you are asked to complete 3 tasks. Visit the website that you have been assigned
(from the array below) and spend some time with it being guided by the Berkeley tutorial. The full array
is included to give you some leads for research later in the semester.
Write up a 1-2 page precise critique of the website. Your audience is a fellow researcher who needs
to know whether or not to spend time with "your" website and if time is spent, what will be gained.
In writing up your critique, note that you are to complete 3 tasks:
- demonstrate the skill of website critique;
. - identify material that will support research of topics scheduled for the seminar; and
- alert colleagues to the range of material available at the specific website.
