Many people have described the internet as a huge public library; a library open to anyone, twenty-four hours a day and with more information than any other library that has ever existed. But this analogy is erroneous. Libraries are organised so that information is easy to find, with uniform, centralised systems and ever-helpful librarians. The internet is a different story. Where do you start when you are trying to find specific information about a specialist interest or one particular piece of data for some academic research?

One good place to start is by clicking onto a site like www.intute.ac.uk. Here – instead of ploughing your way through lists and lists of possibly useful web resources – the donkey work has been done for you – subject specialists have selected websites and evaluated their potential for prospective users like you! Its impressive database holds more than a hundred thousand records and the service has been created by participating universities in the UK.

Subjects on Intute are initially categorised into four main topic areas: Science & Technology, Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences and Health & Life Sciences. Once you have selected the most appropriate topic area you can move nearer to your specialist subject through further subheadings or by using a search box. Additional services include a catalogue of new resources, a virtual training suite with tutorials on all kinds of specialist subjects, data tables, statistics, references, guides and much more.

With so much information in one place you might need to spend a little while exploring the site to see where your particular interests lie. But it will be time well-invested and once you discover where you need to be, you can bookmark the pages for easy future access.

Intute is not the only site of this kind. At www.scholar.google.com you can find academic literature on a wide range of subjects including theses, books and abstracts. The scholar site works through a search box but there is a very useful help section that can assist you in your efforts. www.scirus.com is a science specific search engine which scans more than 450 million science web sites enabling you to quickly find the most recently published reports and data with the minimum of effort. Microsoft Research and NASA sponsors the citeseer digital library where you can get help finding information about computer science, information technology and computer engineering. It can be found at http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/. The name is a pun. A 'sightseer' is a tourist who looks at the sights!

Another tip for finding information on the internet is by working out the name of an existing web site. If you don’t know the name of the site, you can often work it out using this formula:
www.name of organisation.domain.
For example, www.britishcouncil.org. If you are right – all well and good; if you are wrong – then the internet will offer alternative suggestions.The main domain types are:
edu – educational institution in the USA
ac.uk - educational institution in the UK
com – commercial or personal
net – internet infrastructure
gov – government agency
org – non-profit organisations
mil – military institutions