Internet Research Project

Review of INFOMINE

INFOMINE is a Virtual Library of Internet Resources that was created by college librarians to be used by students and professors at the University level. It was created in 1994 at the University of California, Riverside, as a project. It was one of the first web-based academic virtual libraries and is always expanding its resources.

Strengths-
*Contains over 100,000 links
*Provides a great number of access points
*Provides a second-tier collection that complements its first-tier collection which allows the user more detail in searching as well as a greater number of search results.
*Can rank search results by relevance or alphabetically by title.
*Supports Boolean and Exact searching methods

Weaknesses-
*Does not search entire web
* Has small number of topics within the site, but is growing
*Is only for academic purposes
*Can be confusing to first-time users

INFOMINE searches electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, and directories of researchers.

Databases:
Ejournals, periodicals, serials, news letters, directories, virtual libraries, reference resources, instructional uses, textbooks, books, etexts, text archives, maps & mapping, digital libraries, eprint/preprint archives.

Default Operation: It will not search OR, AND if two words are entered without Boolean symbols.

Case Sensitivity- There is no case sensitivity for INFOMINE.

Stop Words: the, a, be

Advanced Search Function- Browsing indexes which include searches by subjects, keywords, and other indexes which include authors, titles, resource types and ’What's New.”

Limits- (within advanced search)
*Record Origin
*Resource Access
*Resource Types

Sorting- INFOMINE gives the user the ability to sort results by relevance and alphabetically.

Display- Title of article and brief quotation with the ability to “view more”

Help Function- Brief set of tips to help the user narrow his or her search

Special Features- One can customize this site on their computer and also receive RSS feedback.