Public Catalogs and Databases
Exploring the Deep Web
Internet Scout: “Since 1994, the Internet Scout Research Group (Scout) has focused on developing better tools and services for finding, filtering, and presenting online information and metadata.” From University of Wisconsin-Madison.
OAIster, Online Archives Iniative: “OAIster began at the University of Michigan in 2002 funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and with the purpose of establishing a retrieval service for publicly available digital library resources provided by the research library community.” From the University of Michigan and OCLC.
Webby Awards: “The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, The Webbys is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) — a 1,000+ member judging body that includes Executive Members comprised of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities, and Associate Members who are former Webby Award Winners and Nominees and other Internet professionals.” (https://www.webbyawards.com/about/)
Data.gov: “The home of the U.S. Government’s open data: Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more.” from the United States Government.
Public Catalogs
Library of Congress (LOC), Online Catalog: “Contains 15 million catalog records for books, serials, manuscripts, maps, music, recordings, images, and electronic resources in the Library of Congress collections” from http://catalog2.loc.gov/
MeLCat: MeLCat contains the holding records of libraries around Michigan. Great place to find out which local libraries hold a specific book or other library items, such as books on CD or videos. Part of the Michigan eLibrary (MeL).
WorldCat : WorldCat was created by OCLC and contains the holdings of libraries around the world. This is the place to look for hard-to-find books, or if you just want to browse books on a specific topic, by author or by language.
Public Databases/Libraries
There are many free, open access internet libraries available. They often include fee-based subscription databases that are purchased by the institution for public use. This means that you will find authoritative, quality resources through the internet libraries listed here.
Note: All of the following databases are free for anyone to use, except MeL which is specifically for Michigan residences.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA): “The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.” from http://dp.la/info/ This is a great place to find public documents and images.
Internet Public Library (IPL): “In January 2010, the website “ipl2: information you can trust” was launched, merging the collections of resources from the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians’ Internet Index (LII) websites. The site is hosted by Drexel University’s College of Information Science & Technology, and a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science are involved in developing and maintaining the ipl2.” from http://www.ipl.org/div/about/
Library of Congress, Free Databases: Currently contains 310 free databases gathered from respectable sources from around the world.
Michigan ELibrary (MeL): This eLibrary contains a variety of fee-based databases: Business Insights, Books & Authors, Demographics Now, Heritage Quest, Opposing Viewpoints, LegalTrac (legal document templates) Michigan Books & Authors, Michigan History and much more!
National Library of Medicine, US Government: “The world’s largest biomedical library, NLM maintains and makes available a vast print collection and produces electronic information resources on a wide range of topics that are searched billions of times each year by millions of people around the globe. It also supports and conducts research, development, and training in biomedical informatics and health information technology.” from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/index.html
Project Gutenberg: “Project Gutenberg offers over 42,000 free ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers” from http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Project Runeberg: “Project Runeberg (runeberg.org) is a volunteer effort to create free electronic editions of classic Nordic (Scandinavian) literature and make them openly available over the Internet” from http://runeberg.org/
PLOS: Public Library of Science: “PLOS publishes seven peer-reviewed open-access journals. The journals vary in their selectivity and contain differing amounts of commentary articles from opinion leaders in a variety of scientific disciplines.The journals are editorially independent. They include PLOS ONE, which publishes all rigorous science across the full range of life and health sciences; the community journals (PLOS Genetics, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Pathogens, and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases); and our flagship journals, PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology, highly selective journals publishing fewer than 10% of submissions along with a range of informative and influential non-research content.” from http://www.plos.org/publications/journals/
World Digital Library: Created by the UN, this website has compiled the holdings of all the national libraries in the world. Easy linking to complete databases or you can search by subject, country, language, look at digitized books and more!
WorldWideScience: Created by the US department of Energy, along with WWS alliance members. WWS ” is a global science gateway—accelerating scientific discovery and progress through a multilateral partnership to enable federated searching of national and international scientific databases and portals”