IPL Collection Policy
Table of Contents
- The Role of the Internet Public Library
- Purpose of Policy
- Definition of Selection
- Goal for Selection
- General Principles
- Specific Principles for Selection
- Specific Criteria for Selection
The Role of the Internet Public Library
The Internet Public Library is an educational, research, and service laboratory; two of its major roles are educating students at graduate schools of information and providing library services to internet users.
As part of the Internet Public Library’s service, students in Internet Public Library workshops select (credential) and maintain links to web sites in the IPL’s major areas of concentration:
- Arts & Humanities
- Business
- Computers
- Education
- Entertainment
- Health
- Government
- Regional
- Science & Tech
- Social Science
- Ready Reference
- Magazines
- Newspapers
- KidSpace
- TeenSpace
- Literary Criticism
- Blogs
- Associations on the Net
- Native American Authors
- POTUS (Presidents of the United States)
Purpose of Policy
- To guide the students in the Internet Public Library workshop courses and collection volunteers in the selection of web sites.
- To inform the public about the principles upon which selections are made.
Definition of Selection
“Selection” refers to the decision that must be made either to add materials or to retain materials already in the collection.
Goal for Selection
The IPL’s goal for selection is to maintain a balanced and broadly representative collection of web sites for information, reference and research.
General Principles
Materials to be added to the collections of the Internet Public Library are selected on the merits of a particular site in relation to the needs of the user community.
The user community for the Internet Public Library includes people of all ages, nationalities, occupations, and levels of education. The patrons’ needs are the guiding factors when selecting materials.
Children’s sites are not included in the general collections, rather they are in KidSpace. Sites specifically for teens are found in TeenSpace.
English is the primary language of the Internet Public Library. Its primacy does not preclude the selection of materials in foreign languages, especially in the foreign reference sources, German Ready Reference, Italian Ready Reference, newspaper, and magazine collections, but it is a guiding principle when selecting sites for inclusion in the general collections, Kidspace, and Teenspace.
Specific Principles for Selection
The following principles are applied to sites under consideration for inclusion in the Internet Public Library:
- Content is freely available and substantial
- No barrier for access to primary material on the site (Examples: preference is given to sites that require no registration or subscription required for access, or an online journal site must provide article content and not just citation info and abstract)
- Authoritative
- Source of the material is trustworthy
- Affiliation with recognized authorities in a field
- Reputable credentials
- Background/history in providing authoritative information on a topic
- Credentials or reputation of sponsoring organization
- Other authoritative web sites also link to this site
- Popularity
- Score from Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/), “linked to” in Advanced Google site or similar data may be considered
- Uniqueness
- Different in features or content from sites on the same subject already in the IPL
- Contact Info readily available
- Reliable
- The site is available each time it’s accessed (excluding rare technical issues)
- Load time is reasonable
- Navigable
- Site design is clear and features are obvious or directions are easy to follow
- Content of site seems not to be plagiarized and adheres to U.S. copyright law
- Site is updated as appropriate to the subject area
- Contains few or no interfering ads or pop-ups
The Internet Public Library does not include:
- Sites or material that violate U.S. copyright law
- Articles from journals or magazines
- Sites that are strictly commercial and have no informational content
- Sites with extremist views
- Erotica
- Degree or course programs, university gateway pages, or homepages. Webpages from colleges or universities on specific subjects are welcome.
- Sites whose only author or publisher information is a web development company as these sites rarely provide rich content not found elsewhere.
- For-pay or subscription sites. The exceptions are:
- The subscription is free
- The site provides some free information to which the Internet Public Library has applied its criteria
The Internet Public Library's collection policy has changed over time and may change again. Therefore, resources already in the Internet Public Library may no longer fit the collection policy and will be weeded out as time and staffing permit.
Community-Edited Online Resources
Definition: The Internet Public Library considers an online resource to be a community-edited online resource if the online resource allows users of the online resource to revise existing content and/or contribute new content on one or more subjects. The Internet Public Library does not consider feedback on the content, including ratings or comments, to be content unless the feedback itself is a significant source of content on one or more subjects.
All community-edited online resources must be expressly approved by Internet Public Library senior staff before being included in the IPL.
Community-edited online resources must fit the Specific Principles for Selection mentioned above. Also, membership in the community must be restricted to those with demonstrated authority or expertise in the one or more subjects for which they are contributing information.
Community-edited online resources which do restrict membership in this way will not be listed in the Internet Public Library.
Specific Criteria for Selection in the Major Subject Areas
Arts & Humanities are defined as human artistic endeavors throughout the world. Those endeavors include:
Fine and Graphic Arts, Literature, Language, History, Libraries, Philosophy, Religion & Theology, Culture, Classics, and Museum Studies.
Business is defined as the realms of commerce and industry; the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and the management of economic systems, specifically including the following:
Accounting, Agriculture, Banking, Business Administration & Management, Business Directories, Business & Economics News, Commerce & Trade, Consumer Issues & Services, E-Commerce, Economics, Employment, Entrepreneurship, Finance, History of Business & Economics, Industry, Insurance, International Business, Labor & Workplace, Marketing & Advertising, Non-Profit Organizations, Real Estate, Statistics, and Taxation.
The computers collection includes information technology, computing machines, their connections, and their capabilities. In particular it contains:
Computers & Internet News, Computer Hardware, Computer Science, Computer Software, Cyberculture, History of Computers & Internet, Internet, Platforms, Programming, and System Administration.
Education is defined as schooling and instruction, the provision of knowledge or training in a particular area or form a particular purpose. Sub-collections of the education collection include:
Adult Education, Alternative Education, Early Childhood and Pre-school, Education News, English as a Second Language (ESL), Higher Education, K-12 Education, Literacy, International Education, Special Education, Teachers & Administrators, and Vocational Education.
Entertainment includes activities of amusement and diversion, specifically including the following:
Arts & Crafts, Books, Entertainment & Leisure News, Fashion, Food, Games, History of Entertainment & Leisure, Hobbies, Home & Garden, Movies, Music, Outdoor Recreation, Paranormal Phenomena, Pets, Radio, Sports, Television, Theater, and Travel & Tourism.
The health collection covers all aspects of human and animal health and medicine. Particular areas of interest in this field include:
Alcohol, Drugs & Tobacco, Alternative Medicine, Anatomy & Physiology, Consumer Information, Disabilities, Diseases, Disorders & Syndromes, Donors and Transplants, Exercise & Fitness, First Aid, General Medicine, Geriatrics, Health & Medical Sciences News, Health Care Management & Policy, History of Medicine, Injuries, Medical Technology, Medications & Pharmaceuticals, Men's Health, Mental Health, Nursing, Nutrition & Diet, Occupational Health & Safety, Oral Health & Dentistry, Pain Treatment & Management, Pediatrics, Preventive Medicine, Professional Resources, Public Health, Sexuality, Specializations, Surgery, Veterinary Medicine, and Women's Health.
Government, Politics, Law and Law Enforcement
Government is defined as rules and principles governing a community and enforced by a political authority; matters having to do with the control and administration of public policy in a political unit; the study of the processes, principles, and structure of government and of political institutions. These include:
Government, History of Law, Government & Political Science, Law, and Law Enforcement.
Regional resources are those related to, or about, a specific nation or region of the world. Place names are based on the Library of Congress’s MARC Code List for Geographic Areas and/or the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names . The collection includes topics such as:
Geography, Modern Day History, Current Events, Directories, Maps, National Libraries, and General Reference Sites That Include Country or Region Information.
Science and technology are defined as the natural and physical sciences and their practical applications. This includes:
The Science of Agriculture & Aqua Culture, Astronomy, Chemical Sciences (Chemistry), Communications, Controversial Topics in Science, Earth Sciences, Electronics, Energy, Engineering, Environmental Sciences & Ecology, History of Science & Technology, Horology (Time Measurement, Clocks, Calendars), Life Sciences, Mathematics, Paleontology, Physics, Science and Technology Libraries, Science & Technology News, and Transportation.
The social sciences are the studies of human society and of individual relationships in and to society. This includes:
Anthropology, Archaeology, Social Customs, Traditions and Folklore, Education, Ethnicity, Culture and Race, Gender & Sexuality, Geography, History, History of Social Sciences, People by Age Group, Political Science, Psychology, Social Issues and Social Welfare, Social Sciences News, and Sociology.
Ready reference includes the basic research tools such as almanacs, dictionaries and encyclopedias. The Ready Reference collection was created to assist Internet Public Library reference librarians in answering reference questions. Any site that could be useful in answering reference questions is a candidate for inclusion in this collection. These include:
Almanacs, Directories, Biographies, Calculation & Conversion Tools, Calendars, Census Data & Demographics, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Experts & How-To, Genealogy, Geography, Grammars, News & Current Events, Periodical Directories, Quotations, Search Engines, Style and Writing Guides, Telephone and Address, Time & Weather, Trivia, and Web Directories.
Web Directories and Search Engines
Definitions
- Web Directory
- The Internet Public Library considers a web site to be a web directory if one of the primary functions of the web site is to list many external web sites under topics. A web site is external to another web site if the two web sites are not published by the same entity or organization. (One of the primary functions of the Internet Public Library web site is as a web directory.)
- Search Engine
- The considers a web site to be a search engine if one of the primary functions of the web site is to receive input (usually text) from users, search one or more indexes of online resources, and return results relevant to the user's input.
Criteria for Web Directories
Sites that are web directories or search engines require express approval before by senior staff members before being added to the IPL.
Web directories that provide links to external web sites on several unrelated topics can be listed in the IPL's Web Directories section if they meet one or more of the following criteria:
- actively monitored and maintained
- relatively free of commercial web sites or web sites selling products or services
- unique (provide something new or better than what is already listed in this section of the IPL)
Web directories that are on a single topic, or a set of closely related topics, can be listed under relevant subject headings within the Internet Public Library if they:
- are mostly free of broken links
- provide more than 20 links to external web sites that provide authoritative information
- have Web directory. provided at the front of the abstract.
All web directories must be expressly approved by Internet Public Library senior staff before being included in the IPL.
The Internet Public Library generally does not include subsections from web directories. For example, the LII (Librarians’s Internet Index) is included in the IPL, however sections such as LII’s Literature and Books section/webpage are not. There are exceptions if a page has sufficient informative content on a topic, if the page is likely to be maintained, and if it deemed extremely likely that a user will search for that topic only and not broader categories in the host site for that page. For example, the BBC News Country profile on East Timor (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1508119.stm) is included as are certain pages from About.com.
Criteria for Search Engines
Search engines can be listed in the IPL's Search Engines section if they meet one or more of the following criteria:
- highly popular
- highly useful
- unique (provide something new or better than what is already listed in this section of the IPL)
All search engines must be expressly approved by Internet Public Library senior staff before being included in the IPL.
Magazines (Serials)
The Internet Public Library Magazine Collection lists online versions of magazines, newsletters and professional journals, as well as similar publications that exist only in electronic form, such as e-zines and e-journals.
To be considered for inclusion, the online version must include a significant number of articles or other information that are free to the general public, not just tables of contents and subscription information.
The Newspapers collection lists online newspapers that feature regular news coverage of a particular geographic area.
In order to be considered for inclusion, the newspaper must offer some free, regularly updated news. Since this collection is global in scope, the newspaper does not have to be published in English to be included.
The Internet Public Library collects at least one national newspaper for every country in the world. A balanced representation is sought whenever possible. The names of geographic regions and countries are those established in the Library of Congress’s MARC Code List for Geographic Areas.
The collection currently includes representation from a total of 160 countries and 13 non-self-governing territories, as well as all 50 U.S. States and the District of Columbia . However, although the collection is continuously expanding, the Internet Public Library makes no claim of it being comprehensive.
Balance in Point of View. In order to be considered for inclusion, the newspaper should make an effort in its editorial stance to maintain objectivity. Objectivity is a subjective criterion, and the Internet Public Library attempts to avoid newspapers whose editorial stance is clearly in service of a specific political ideology or a partisan bias. For example, while the Washington Post is generally accepted as an objective news organization, the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) would not fit that description and might instead be included in another category, such as Political Advocacy Groups. In some cases, such as countries where the official news agency is state-controlled, the objectivity criterion is necessarily somewhat elastic.
Reliability/Frequency. Another criterion for inclusion is reliability and frequency. In order to be considered for inclusion, the newspaper must offer at least some free, regularly updated news content (it should not be a completely subscription-contingent web site), should be readily uploadable under normal Internet traffic conditions, and should be logically and easily navigable. Frequency can range from updating throughout the day, as many major newspapers do, or updating once a week or once a month, in the cases of less-frequently published newspapers. In general, if a newspaper’s site has not been updated in over three months, its continued inclusion will be revisited.
Geographical Representation. As much as possible, the newspapers included in the collection should represent all regions of the world. If a newspaper falters in some of the other criteria for inclusion but helps give geographical balance, it may be included in the IPL.
In addition, the collection makes an effort to represent countries and/or territories that are in dispute, such as Cyprus and Taiwan . This policy will follow national boundaries as defined by the MARC Code List for Countries . For instance, occupied Palestine is not considered a separate “country” under this definition, but rather a subdivision of Israel .
Language Inclusivity. As the collection is global in scope, a newspaper does not have to be published in English to be included. However, if the foreign-language newspaper is published within the United States , other criteria are also considered such as the newspaper’s having a WorldCat entry, its inclusion in ARL/CRL databases and the Librarians’ Index to the Internet, and its size and the scope of the community that the newspaper serves.
KidSpace
The Internet Public Library provides children in grades 3-7 with information to further their interests as well as provide support for their educational needs. A very limited amount of information is included for preschool through grade 2. The Internet Public Library also provides materials to support parents and teachers in their work with children.
Links selected for KidSpace conform to criteria similar to the general collections, but there are some special considerations:
- Sites should not contain material considered sexually explicit or that contain material which is considered harmful to minors by U.S. standards
- Sites cannot contain inappropriate or confusing ads or numerous pop-up ads (i.e., ads in the center of a page that make it difficult for a child to distinguish the ad from the content)
The Internet Public Library provides teens in grades 8-12 with information that supports their educational objectives, social needs and personal interests. TeenSpace provides current, authoritative information that is teen-friendly and toward teens.
Links selected for TeenSpace conform to the same criteria as the general collections.
The Internet Public Library Literary Criticism Collection contains critical and biographical web sites about authors and their works.
The Internet Public Library selectively collects blogs according to the following criteria. Sites must:
- Provide news & information, not an opinion (though highly informed gossip and opinions are acceptable) or provide a glimpse into what it is like to be a doctor, lawyer, librarian, etc.
- Are authored by someone well-known in his/her field or someone qualified to discuss the subject of the weblog
- Provide a solid place to begin research in a particular area
- Focus on a particular area, subject, occupation, hobby, etc.
- N.B. Sites can also be too specific, e.g., a blog devoted to a single American basketball team.
- Have existed for at least a year (unless they are extraordinarily popular)
- Have 1 or 2 comments per post
- Are based on reputable sources
We would also like blogs that match the following criteria as well. However, it is not necessary that blogs on the Internet Public Library match the following criteria.
- Have a high ranking on sites such as…
- Technorati - a search engine that lists the number of times a particular blog has been linked to
- Google Link - a service of Google that lists the number of sites, not just blogs, which link to a particular blog
- Alexa - a web site that gives statistics and the number of visitors to a particular blog and how that number of visitors ranks out of all web sites
- Have made the news in other media (print, TV, radio) because of their popularity
- Made a respected and/or well-known "Best of…" or "Most Popular…" web sites or weblogs list
- Frequently mentioned or linked to from other blogs
This collection includes the official sites of various professional and trade associations, cultural and art organizations, political parties and advocacy groups, labor unions, and academic societies. National and international associations, as opposed to local chapters, are selected. Sites must offer more than just information on how to join or an address; rather sites should use the web environment to disseminate information.
Directories or sites that charge a fee are not included.
Sites in this special collection provide information on Native North American authors with bibliographies of their published works, biographical information, and links to online resources including interviews, online texts, and tribal web sites.
Articles, Excerpts, Parts of Larger Works. The database contains articles from scholarly journals that have not been indexed in commonly-available academic journal indexes. Articles that appear as book chapters are also included. Newspaper articles are excluded.
Tribal Affiliation. The tribal authority for this database is the Tribal Leaders Directory, specifically section 5, "Index — Tribal Entities," (http://www.bia.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/text/idc002652.pdf) produced by the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, a list of 564 federally-recognized American Indian Tribes and Alaska Natives and all the Regions, Agencies, and Offices within the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
POTUS (Presidents of the United States) is a representative site about the American Presidency including biographies, speeches and writings, election results, odd facts and Presidency highlights. This site is owned and maintained by an Internet Public Library alumnus and is updated periodically by its owner and by Internet Public Library staff.
What is the IPL?
The Internet Public Library is a public library for the world wide web.
Students from a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science develop and maintain the IPL!
Here are some of the partners in the IPL Consortium. A complete list is found on the IPL Consortium page.
The Internet Public Library is hosted by The iSchool at Drexel, College of Information Science and Technology,
with major support from the College of Information at Florida State University.
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