LibrarySpot (http://www.
LibrarySpot.com/) is an award-winning
information portal serving teachers, students, librarians,
and anyone
else who wants to perform research on line. It is completely free.
It is easy to see why this site has won so many awards. Despite
the enormous number of links and bits of
information presented on the
site, it is exceptionally easy to navigate. Moreover, the links
are kept up to date; they work.
The site brings together most, if not all, of the resources one would
find in a conventional library, including dictionaries, encyclopedias,
thesauri, and maps. There are collections of links to journals,
books, calendars and calculators, rules of grammar and punctuation,
style guides and advice on writing. There are links to
collections of images and quotations, laws and business guides.
If you are interested in the life stories of strangers, check out the
biography page; if you are interested in your own story, click on
genealogy.
If the site has any drawback at all, it is that some of the information
is useful only or primarily to Americans. Government information,
for instance, pertains to the United States alone. However,
wherever possible, world information is included so that, for example,
links are provided to telephone directories around the world.
Ask the Expert provides links to sites that welcome questions from
children and adults about a variety of subjects from math homework to
computers to medical conditions. It is bound to be a favourite.
At the time of writing, How To provides links to two sites -
SoYouWanna.com and RepairClinic.com - both of which are worth at least
a first, and probably return, visits.
LibrarySpot encourages
users to suggest new sites, so this area – and the others – will
probably grow.
LibrarySpot is one of ten sites which make up the StartSpot
network. Whether there are children in the house or not, you will
want to add it to your list of favourites and visit again and again.