[LM_NET] SHARE: Indexing the Internet

["drmichaelbell@virtuallrc.com" <drmichaelbell@VIRTUALLRC.COM>]

Dear Colleagues:

As a new school term begins, please let me share with you a website I created which 
I believe will be useful for you and your students.

The site is the Virtual Learning Resources Center, found at 
http://www.virtuallrc.com .  Even though the VLRC is technically a “.com”, it is in 
no way commercial, nor will it ever be.  I chose the “.com” part several years ago 
before I really knew what I was doing, so I guess I’m stuck with it.

The VLRC is an online electronic research site, or search engine, that indexes only 
Internet information sites that have been previously recommended on other 
librarians’ and teachers’ web pages.  As I surf web pages on the Net provided by 
teachers, librarians, and library and educational consortia, I evaluate each link I 
find as to whether it adds something new to the Virtual LRC.  If it does, I add it 
to the index.  

I maintain ten different indexes by subject area : literature, science, technology, 
biography, etc.  I tie all ten manually maintained indexes together with a meta 
search engine.  I can also choose to directly meta-search any librarian created 
website if it provides it’s own site search tool.

I started the VLRC in 1998 when I was the director of a South Texas community 
college library as a way to learn about the Internet through hands-on experience.  
Now that I am retired, it’s also a way for me to remain a part of the profession.

I hope you and your students will link to and use the VLRC.  It is designed for 
community college and high school students, although I’ve been told that it is also 
at times useful for middle school students.  In addition to the main search tool, 
the VLRC also contains two other useful sections, http://magbot.virtuallrc.com , a 
selective magazine index, and http://alphamarks.virtuallrc.com , a set of subject 
classified bookmarks.  Also, if you so desire, you may include a VLRC search box on 
your web pages.  To do this, please go to : 
http://www.virtuallrc.com/vlrcsearchbox.html .

The Virtual LRC is an on-going project.  Your suggestions for improvement will be 
greatly appreciated.

Well, my best wishes for a successful 2007 – 2008 school term.

Michael Bell, Ph.D.
drmichaelbell@virtuallrc.com
Former Chair, Texas Association of School Librarians
Retired school and university librarian
webmaster at http://www.virtuallrc.com
webmaster at http://magbot.virtuallrc.com
webmaster at http://alphamarks.virtuallrc.com
webmaster at http://www.academicindex.net 

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