Recommended Gateway Sites for the Deep Web
This portion of the Internet consists of information that requires interaction to display such as dynamically-created pages, real-time information and databases. Currently estimated to be over 100 times larger than the surface web, the Deep Web houses billions of documents in databases and other sources, over 95% of which are available to the public. As crawler-based search engines cannot access these documents, specialized sources such as these currently provide our only access.
General Gateways | Humanities | Social Sciences
Science
and Technology | Health
Sciences
Business
and Government | Reference,
Popular Culture | Other
Invisible Web Directory (highly recommended) http://www.invisible-web.net/
An excellent gateway to some of the best research-oriented invisible web resources available. Arranged by category and sub-category. Moderate in size with sites well selected and organized. Maintained by Chris Sherman and Gary Price.
Resource Discovery Network
http://www.rdn.ac.uk
A well-annotated listing of Deep Web resources.
Compiled and maintained by over 70 educational and research organizations,
largely from the UK. Hubs include
ALTIS - Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and
Tourism
Artifact - Arts and Creative Industries
BIOME - Health and Life Sciences
EEVL - Engineering, Mathematics and
Computing
GEsource - Geography and Environment
Humbul - Humanities
PSIgate - Physical Sciences
SOSIG - Social Sciences, Business and Law
Infomine (highly recommended) http://infomine.ucr.edu
U. of California at Irvine’s directory of excellent academic research sites now includes search capability for all databases found on the sites.
Dmoz.org (recommended) http://dmoz.org/
The librarian-created Open Directory offers this comprehensive listing of reviewed, quality websites and databases by subject area.
Profusion (recommended) http://profusion.com/
A portalized search site that searches “invisible web” as well as conventional crawler-based search engines related to your search term(s). Search box at top accesses several large general engines. Deep Web content must be accessed through subject areas below.
Completeplanet (highly recommended) http://completeplanet.com/
A human-compiled directory of deep web resources, with broad subject coverage but fewer sites per category. Ratings available for each site listed.
Covers over 100,000 embedded databases, identifying those relevant to the search and
searches them.
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Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu/
The University of California’s premier resource offers a listing of over 140 specialized and general search engines and services. Choose “Internet Enabling Tools” at the homepage and type search engines and a subject in the search box.
One of the richest gateways to specialized search engines. Main categories open into more specialized topics, with a wide array of sites. Located in Australia, offers an international orientation. Descriptions given if you “hover”.
Humbul (highly recommended) http://www.humbul.ac.uk/
Covers languages and literatures, philosophy, history, religion, archaeology, American studies and other related areas. Maintained by the University of Oxford.
Voice of the Shuttle (highly recommended) http://vos.ucsb.edu/
Top choice for Humanities resources. Maintained by Alan Liu of UC Santa Barbara. Includes Anthropology, Area Studies and Minority Studies as well as other Humanities disciplines.
Bloomsbury Research Centre http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/
Provided by Bloomsbury Publishers, this metasite includes dictionaries, quotations and literary reference works as well as links to genre-specific gateways, awards and festivals and book trade information.
Shakesearch http://www.rhymezone.com/shakespeare/
Full-text search of all works by Shakespeare with links to related sources
Bases de données bibliographiques sur la Toile
(recommended) http://www-bu.univ-paris8.fr/Ref/DocBdd.html
Includes free bibliographic databases arranged by academic discipline (check the bottom of the page). Also includes gateway sites to library catalogs worldwide.
History Matters (highly recommended) http://historymatters.gmu.edu/
Features media-rich resources for teaching U.S. history at the secondary and college levels. The associated site www.history is a collection of quality sites with extensive descriptions.
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Social
Sciences:
Rutgers University Research Guides: Social Science and Law (highly recommended)
Excellent source, covering Environmental Studies, Women’s Studies, Latin American Studies, Library & Information Science and Alcohol Studies as well as the traditional social science disciplines.
Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu/
The University of California’s premier resource offers a listing of over 140 specialized and general search engines and services. Choose “Internet Enabling Tools” at the homepage and type search engines and a subject in the search box.
One of the richest gateways to specialized search engines. Main categories open into more specialized topics, with a wide array of sites. Located in Australia, offers an international orientation. Descriptions given if you “hover”.
Statistical Resources on the Web http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
One of the best, national and international in scope, with links to U. of Michigan’s excellent Foreign Governments Document Collection.
Social Science Information Gateway (UK & Europe) http://sosig.ac.uk/
Offers articles, reports, databases and organizations in major social science fields, business and women’s studies. Most resources are UK and European-based. The Grapevine feature accesses academic departments, latest conferences and resumes. Part of the RDN.
SocioSite http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite
Psychcrawler (highly recommended) http://www.psychcrawler.com/
A product of the American Psychological Association created to provide quick access to quality Internet content in the field of psychology.
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Rutgers University Research Guides: Business (highly recommended)
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/busi/business.shtml
Excellent source for Business News, Market Research, Company Profiles, Job Searching and Financing Your Business. National and international in scope.
First Gov (highly recommended) http://firstgov.gov/
New government information gateway. Comprehensive and well maintained.
Best interface for deep web content on US Government websites with full-text databases
Beaucoup (highly recommended) http://www.beaucoup.com/
Collection of over 2,500 searchable databases and search engines
Business.com http://www.business.com/
Information pages on 64,000+ public, private and international companies as well as Human Resources, Marketing and Consumer Services.
EGovLinks http://egovlinks.com/
Maintained by an independent agency, this site offers sites not available at First Gov. Challenging to navigate.
Search.com http://www.search.com/
Gateway to over 800 engines. Subject access is through Directory Categories, then subtopics then enter search term(s)
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SciCentral http://www.sciquest.com
NOTE: Choose SciCentral within the GoTo Box. Gateway site to directories, databases and metasites. Organized by broad subject area (Biological, Health, Engineering, Physical, Chemical, etc.) and resource type. Strong in breaking science news with links to current research highlights
Sci-TechResources http://www.scitechresources.gov/
Searchable database with descriptions of sites that are key entry points to U.S. government science and technology resources
Scientific Search Engines http://www.scientific-search-engines.com/
Actually a gateway to quality search services and sites in all academic disciplines in English and German. Maintained by LLEK in Germany.
One of the richest gateways to specialized search engines. Main categories open into more specialized topics, with a wide array of sites. Located in Australia, offers an international orientation. Descriptions given if you “hover
Scirus (highly recommended) http://www.scirus.com/
Created by Elsevier Science, this gateway covers scientific, technical and medical sources with over 60 million pages, listing Web resources as well as the fee-based Elsevier Science Collection. Excludes sites with no scientific content. Includes pdf and postscript files and indexes full text of all documents. Fine Advanced Search features. Classified into broad subject areas that can be searched individually. Customization offered
Maintained by James Martindale of UC-Irvine, a gateway to high-quality sources in a wide range of reference topics, especially strong in sciences and health sciences.
WWW Virtual Library (highly recommended) http://vlib.org/Science.html
Comprehensive metasites for biosciences, health, earth sciences, physics and chemistry. Maintained by universities and research institutions. (For agriculture, computer science and eingeneering see http://vlib.org/.
Biology Links (highly recommended) http://mcb.harvard.edu/BioLinks.html
Includes data banks, model organisms, biological software directories and other related gateway sites. Maintained by the Dept. of Microbiology at Harvard.
Internet Directory for Botany (highly recommended) http://www.botany.net/IDB
Rich collection of databases, links and specialized data resources. Maintained by an international team of scholars.
Virtual Search Engines (highly recommended) http://www.virtualfreesites.com/search.html
Classified listing of over 10,000 search services and subject-specific metasites. Especially strong in computers and information technology. Unusually excellent and helpful site descriptions. Geared to the professional searcher.
Internet.com http://internet.com/
One of the most complete gateway sites of this type, covering all operating systems, markup languages, wireless, downloads and more; comprehensive and up-to-date.
Calculators On-line Center (highly recommended) http://www.martindalecenter.com/calculators.html
The most comprehensive collection of this type on the Internet.
Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu/
The University of California’s premier resource offers a listing of over 140 specialized and general search engines and services. Choose “Internet Enabling Tools” at the homepage and type search engines and a subject (eg. Science) in the search box.
Search4Science http://search4science.com/
Although this service forwards all searches to Google (with identical results) it also offers useful lists of links to other gateway sites, by broad subject area.
Search.com http://search.cnet.com/
Gateway to over 800 engines. Subject access is through Directory Categories, then subtopics then enter search term(s)
Web pages that perform calculations, probabilities, plotting and other interactive programming environments.
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Healthfinder (highly recommended) http://www.healthfinder.gov/
The National Institutes of Health maintain access to over 100 health-related limited-area engines and database search pages from government and other sites as well. Consumer-oriented information covering prevention and self-care, infants, teens, senions, fraud and complaints and much more Enter search engines in the search box at the URL given above.
A true Virtual Medical Center covering general and specialized medical fields as well as allied areas such as Dental, Medical Law, Nutrition, Pharmacy and Veterinary. Includes online courses, tutorials, databases and video files.
In-depth drug information covering over 4,000 U.S products. Each entry contains description, clinical pharmacology, indications, usage, contraindications, warnings, precautions, drug interactions,adverse reactions, drug abuse and dependence, dosage and administration and animal pharmacology.
Acurian http://www.acurian.com/patient/
Provides comprehensible searchable listings of clinical trials actively enrolling participants, detailed drug information and news and commentaries from leading medical and research programs.
WWW Virtual Library (highly recommended) http://vlib.org/Medicine.html
Strong in traditional medical areas, allied health fields and alternative medicine. (For medical research see Biosciences section of the Virtual Library
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Reference, Popular Culture, Lifestyle:
Maintained by James Martindale of UC-Irvine, a gateway to high-quality sources in a wide range of reference topics. Excellent collection of free online foreign language dictionaries.
Allsearchengines http://allsearchengines.com/
Especially strong in listings of search engines and metasites for Images & Sounds, Games, Software & Computers, Entertainment, Books and “Site Awards and Best-of-the-Web”. Little or no description of sites given.
Includes an excellent “Online Library” of resources on foundations and non-profits and grant-seeking as well as a directory of grantmakers from all types of business and private sources.
Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/
One of the best for public library needs, including exhibits, news, teens, youth collections and tutorials on the research process. Now includes guides formerly known as Argus Clearinghouse.
First-Search http://first-search.com/
Fine collection of engines and metasites, especially strong in Reference and Lifestyle areas.
Strong in popular culture, tech, news and reference Offers meta-interface to foreign language search engines in over 40 countries.
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A search engine maintained at MIT for weblogs, postings by individuals often centered around a particular topic or issue. Quality can vary from the polemical to highly technical. A growing genre and worth knowing about. Blogspot.com is a good place to start your own blog.
The librarian-created Open Directory offers this comprehensive listing of blogs by subject area. Path: Computer/Internet/On the Web/Weblogs
Provides access to over 2,000 public records and legal databases worldwide.
Virtual Gumshoe http://virtualgumshoe.com/
Gateway to locator databases, from Adoption Resources to Voters Records. Associations and individuals covered extensively.
NewPages http://www.newpages.com/
Portal to information on independent bookstores, independent publishers, literary periodicals, alternative newsweeklies and more.
SearchPDF http://searchpdf.adobe.com/
A search site offered by Adobe exclusively for files in pdf format. Use in conjunction with Google for locating pdf files.
Disinformation http://www.disinfo.com/
Collects and indexes the most “hidden” and subversive material on the ‘Net. Over 30 million documents.
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Beaucoup (highly recommended) http://www.beaucoup.com/
Collection of over 2,500 searchable databases and search engines
Search Engine Colossus (highly recommended) http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
Over 920 search engines and subject directories, organized by country with brief descriptions of scope, language and origin of each.
Finderseeker http://www.finderseeker.com
The only gateway that allows cross-searching for specialized engines by topic AND country, eg. education and Italy.
Country Search Engines http://www.philb.com/countryse.htm
Includes subject metasites focused on individual countries as well as search engines and subject directories. Up-to-date, but without annotations.
Main Portals http://www.mainportals.com/#countries
A listing of major, portalized search services in 84 countries
Nationsonline http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/
Smaller listing of search services in 45 countries, with each designated as a search engine or subject directory (index).
Official City Sites http://officialcitysites.org/ (highly recommended)
Covers cities in the U.S, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Country-specific Information Sources
Nationsonline http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/
A wealth of up-to-date information on individual countries, cultural, political, social and econcomic.
ELDIS http://www.eldis.org
Information sources on development and the environment, country-specific and international in scope
World Skip http://www.worldskip.com/
News, information and “International Marketplace”; strong in e-commerce.