The Internet Public Library – A Great Reference Source

In March 1995, the Internet Public Library was born at the University of Michigan.  It was the brainchild of the School of Information Department.  Recently, the project was taken over by Drexel University in Philadelphia.  This site is run as a non-profit entity and it is administered mostly by students and volunteers. 

The purpose of this site was to provide persons who were majoring in library and information science with information to assist them in learning more about the library system.  Since this site has evolved, there have been numerous students who have assisted in the maintenance of this site. 

The volunteers have assisted in providing answers to questions with a service they provide called Ask A Question.  This is the only way that this library site has stayed alive. 

Since its inception, the Internet Public Library has reached out to other library schools.  They have also had the benefit of taking part in the Ask A Question reference service.  The site is looking to branch out further to other library schools and get them to participate. 

The Internet Public Library or IPL, as it’s called, has formed a bond with a site called Grokker.  This site assists in getting information form online searches.  This works when the site sends Grokker link data and is sent back in a different format.  The results from these searches are totally different than what you would find in a regular search on the major search engines.

There are different subjects to conduct your search references from on this site:  Arts, Government, Business, Education, Computers, Social Sciences, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and much more. 

When searching through Grokker, you can search through different ways.  When you use the outline view, you’ll get subjects that will be considered categories located in the middle section.  When you explore the outline link a little further, you will see more stuff, including subcategories.

The Map View will show the same thing, but in a 3D view.  It is set up with circles notating different categories.  The links and documents are the square shapes.  You can go to any category to look at the information.

If you want somewhere to put your links, you can use the working list feature.  This is like you storing documents on your hard drive.  Whenever you search, you can continuously add more items.  When you’re done, you can e-mail what you’ve found. 

You should e-mail your findings to your e-mail address anyway.  Otherwise, if you’re not connected to Grokker, you can lose your information.  You can also use Grokker for social bookmarking.  When you post to the Delicious site, you can store and share more bookmarks.        

This site also provides tips on how your search can benefit you and it is also accessible for people with disabilities.  Using this site can be of a great service to you and others who are looking for reference material. 

The best thing about this is that you’re not alone in your search because there are people available to assist.  Most of all, the service is free, so you can’t beat that.