Welcome to the Internet Public Library, brought to you by a class from the University of Michigan’s School of Information. This Web site is also now being used in many other schools. To learn more about how it got started, check out the section under the Inside heading, specifically the link “How the IPL Consortium Came To Be.” Or, you can check out the About the IPL section on the side menu.
There are two things here that I absolutely adore! One of them is the Spotlight. Here you can see different places spotlighted for your education or enjoyment. When I was there, the spotlight was Teenspace Poetry Wiki, which is a place where teens can post and read poetry. You can even check out the previous spotlights by clicking the link “See all of the IPL’s Spotlight Features.”
The second thing I adore is their search engine and the ability to GROK your results. What does GROK do for your search results, you may ask? Well, it takes about 10 seconds to load the first time, but what it does is map your results. It will take what you type in (for example, presidents) and map the possible categories that you might be looking for inside the circle. You can then click on the different topics to narrow it down. While searching for presidents, I got these as categories: General, Ladies, United States, American Presidents and History. With those, I was able to narrow down my search from there and choose Ladies if I wanted information on the First Ladies. Pretty cool, huh? I’m always looking for interesting new ways to search out information and this is perfect!
Now, as to the side menu, if you feel like just browsing through the different sections to find what you are looking for or to just stumble across something new to learn, you’ll find all the sections on the side menu to be helpful. This Web site is just like a real library in your hometown! There’s Subject Collections, Ready Reference, the Reading Room, Kidspace, Teenspace, Special Collections and Searching Tools as well.
What will you learn at the IPL today?!
~ Amanda