Resources for Information Skills
Section contents page Introduction Choosing the right tool for the job Search engines When to use information gateways and specialist databases Google Access to the invisible web Google development How to get the best out of Google Why not always Google? Other search engines Meta-search engines Why use a directory? Overview Summary
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Information gateways and specialist databases

Information gateways are well organised indexes of websites which provide single access point to browse and search for the appropriate information.Often the term subject gateway and information gateway is used interchangeably. Some of the gateways tend to be specific subject focus, while others provide general directories with high quality e-resources.

Subject gateways are good at providing comprehensive results than a search engine and direct you to high quality information related to your subject.Good place to start for literature search for your research.

The following are the characteristics of information gateway

  • manually created rather than by computer robots
  • search and browse access
  • contain detailed descriptions about the collection and resources
  • includes collection development and collection management policy
  • all information gateways have their own search engine and user interface

A few example of information gateways are:

intute   Internet Scout Porject  BUBL (Not updated since 2011, but usefull) 

A database is an organised collection of data or metadata in a digital format, typically stored on a computer and can be accessed with the use of machine or over the internet. A specialist database focus towards specific subject areas including journal articles, books, conference proceedings, research publications, student's dissertation, theses and many more.

Most of specialist databases require payment to subscribe, meaning they are commercial based resource. To provide access to these databases the library or the parent organization may need to pay subscription fee.There are also open access database maintained by non-profit organizations to break through the increasing price of commercial e-resources.

A few example of specialist commercial database

ProQuest  EDiNA   SCOPUS   JSTOR (offers partial access)

PubMed, is offered free over the internet, which covers medical and health literature, but this is an exception rather than the rule.