Basic Web Maintenance

When it comes to selecting Web sites for your library's database, I recommend adding the content-rich variety—sites that are authoritative, valid, and credible. I'm often drawn to those with information that's difficult to find in print resources and ones that present information in a way that makes me want to learn more about a topic. I also love the new library software packages, such as Sagebrush's Winnebago Spectrum package, which have the capacity to add Web sites to your online catalog—so when students and teachers search by subject, keyword, or title, they also get hits on related links. On the flip side, the software also enables users to find print materials related to the site they are examining. Here is a list of some of my favorites:

Ad*Access
scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess
Ad*Access presents images and database information for more than 7,000 advertisements that ran in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. The site concentrates on five subject areas: radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene, and World War II. This is a great collection, which, even with its narrow focus, gives students a feel for life during the first half of the 20th century.

American Memory Collection
memory.loc.gov
The Library of Congress has digitized its collections and posted them on a Web site that's extremely interesting, informative, and fun to browse. The American Memory Collection offers something for everyone—from American slave narratives to inventor Thomas Edison's scratchy phonograph recordings to a comprehensive collection of early baseball cards. Consider highlighting one of its many collections each month in your library's display case.

The History Channel Classroom
historychannel.com/classroom
The Discovery Channel: Discovery School
discoveryschool.com
PBS Teacher Source
www.pbs.org/teachersource
These three television networks each provide a Web site with images, videos, essays, and all types of useful information to supplement their educational programming. The sites also feature teacher-student sections that are aimed at a school-age audience. Even when used on their own, these sites provide a wealth of knowledge for both students and parents.

The FDR Cartoon Archive
www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr
This Web site, created by the history and computer science classes at Niskayuna High School in Schenectady, NY, and the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY, is a model of what schools can accomplish when history is treated as a top priority. Thousands of political cartoons of President Franklin D. Roosevelt have been digitized and catalogued, enabling visitors to view otherwise hard-to-find data.

The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory
www.chicagohs.org/fire/index.html
Created in 1996 by the Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, this site remains one of my longtime favorites. Its pictures, photos, and essays transport visitors back in time, making them feel as if they were a part of the historic event.

The Inflation Calculator
www.westegg.com/inflation
Have you ever wondered how much yesterday's items would cost today? The Inflation Calculator lets visitors plug in a monetary amount and calculate its precise buying power between 1800 and 2002. For example, something that cost $10 in 1804 would cost more than $115 in 2002. This is a great site for students who are using primary-source journals in their research.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine
web.archive.org/collections/web/advanced.html
Did that favorite site of yours suddenly disappear? This site, a collaborative effort of the Internet Archive and Alexa software, lets visitors search cached sites by URL to find previous versions of a Web page. For a concrete example of how much things have changed, enter capecod.net/schrockguide/ and visit the 1997 version of my Web site, Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
www.wnet.org/tenement
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents information in an innovative way that shows visitors what it was like to be an immigrant living in New York City at the turn of the last century. The site features shadow-box projects illustrating what things looked like at that time, and informative essays that enable students to virtually visit a New York brownstone.

Renaissance: What Inspired This Age of Balance and Order?
www.learner.org/exhibits/renaissance/index.html
Although this resource is inspired by The Western Tradition, a video series that was produced by the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for college and high school classrooms, it stands on its own as a content-rich Web site. The depth of information it offers is not overwhelming, but the site provides helpful links to this crucial period.

THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet
thomas.loc.gov
The U.S. government has provided a well-organized, easy-to-use Web site that answers many commonly asked reference questions, such as "How many state representatives does our state have?" and "Where can I find the coin specifications for current U.S. coins?"

Cataloging the Web at UNL libraries
www.state.ne.us/home/NLA/nlaquarterly/2002-4-Barnes.htm
This essay by Kira Barnes, a librarian in the Original Cataloging Unit at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, appeared in the Nebraska Library Association's Quarterly (Vol. 33, No. 4, Winter 2002, pp. 22–27). It shares helpful information about UNL's experiences in cataloging Web sites.

Guidelines for the Use of Field 856
www.loc.gov/marc/856guide.html
Although its title may not woo you, this document, which was revised in 2003 by the Library of Congress' Network Development and MARC Standards office, provides guidance in classifying electronic resources.

Cataloging Internet Resources: A Manual and Practical Guide
www.oclc.org/oclc/man/9256cat/toc.htm
A manual created by OCLC and edited by Nancy B. Olson, this information-packed publication details the importance of cataloging Web sites and the rationale for doing it.

Of course, along with adding Web sites to your library's collection comes the responsibility of checking to make sure they are up-to-date and accurate. I recommend that Web addresses and links be checked at least once a month. This can be done with Web page-creation software packages, such as Microsoft's FrontPage and Allaire's HomeSite, which provide you with a handy list of URLs that are invalid or have recently moved.

There are also free services available that will run robots and present you with reports of URLs that need fixing or deleting. Two free sources are Stickysauce (www.stickysauce.com/cgi-local/linkcheck/linkcheck.pl), a no-frills link-checker that returns results quickly, and Xenu's LinkCheck (home.snafu.de/tilman/xenu link.html), a piece of freeware that does a great job of reporting broken and moved links.

But even the best link-checking software is prone to mistakes. When a site displays a "sorry we have closed down" page, automatic link-checkers will respond as if it still exists. The only way to actually see if your library's recommended sites are still running or have changed is to manually click on each one. It takes time to search, evaluate, and keep your Web site's information up-to-date, but it's well worth the effort.