January 4 2001

The Scout Report launches new searchable archives

The world is full of mysteries, one being from where the Internet journalists get their information. They constantly write about new and interesting sites, and one may wonder whether they spend all their time surfing the Web. Don't they have a life? You know: walks in the park, a trip to the cinema with a loved one...

Well, yes, they may have. The secret could be that they let others find the Web sites for them. A lot of them subscribe to some of the Net's influential newsletters on high quality Web sites. One of the best is the Scout Report, published by the Computer Sciences Department at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At the moment the Scout team is responsible for the following mailing lists and newsletters:

• The Scout Report
• The Scout Report for Business and Economics
• The Scout Report for Science and Engineering
• The Scout Report for Social Sciences
• K12 Newsletters
• The K.I.D.S. Report
• Net-happenings
• New-list
• Net-Newsletters

(The Scout Report has more information on the various items.)

The reviews are mainly written by librarians and educators.

In December the Scout Report established The Scout Report Archives, a database containing over six years' worth of the Scout Report and subject-specific Scout Reports. It contains some 10,000 critical annotations of selected Internet sites and mailing lists.

According to the Scout Report each annotation seeks to provide "an overall analysis of each site including general content, attribution (authors, etc.), currency, availability, accessibility and presentation." In our opinion they generally achieve this goal. The majority of the sites covered are free.

The Scout Report Archives is based on a demonstration project called the Scout Report Signpost that was produced by the Internet Scout Project from 1996 to 2000. The main goal of the Signpost was to show that Internet Resources could be cataloged, classified, and arranged using existing classification schemes such as the one used by the Library of Congress.

The Signpost is history, but the lessons learned from the Scout Report Signpost research have been applied to the Scout Report Archives. A few of the original features of the Scout Report Signpost have been maintained, including the ability to browse by Library of Congress Subject Headings, field searching, and links to the full critical annotations from the newsletters.

In addition, the Scout Report Archives has several new features. The search engine has been replaced by a new one. Moreover, the Scout Report Archives allows users to search and browse the collection of reviewed resources using the so-called "CYRUS Classification" (Classify Your Resources Using Scout), a subject hierarchy developed by the Internet Scout Project. For all practical purposes this means that you can browse the archives in a Yahoo-like manner.

Pandia tells us she is in love with the Scout Report. However, this may be partly do to the fact that the Report gave her a six star recommendation. The Report is good though, honestly!

• The Scout Report Archives
• The Scout Report Archives Help Section (includes general information on the Archives)
• The Scout Report Archives - topic directory index (CYRUS classification)
• To subscribe Scout Report, go to: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/misc/lists/