On March 3, 2008 I visited The Internet Public Library website at http://ipl.org/. This site is an online reference service that describes itself as “a group of highly talented, creative, strong-willed people, working hard” to create “the first public library of and for the Internet community”. It is being created as “an experiment, trying to discover and promote the most effective roles and contributions of librarians to the Internet and vice versa”.

The site itself has a very clean layout. Being a first time visitor to a website can sometimes be overwhelming, but the clean and simple design of this site makes it very easy to find your way around. I was able to get comfortable with the site’s setup in just a few minutes. The first area I visited was “About the IPL“. It offered a great deal of information about the sites creation and purpose. It allowed me to “get to know“ the site.

For search options, the site offers a query at the top of the page and a number of navigational links to different collections on the sidebar. The links included subject collections, special collections, books, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, and more. It was a nice that the information was right there for browsing purposes, or could be found with a query search.

For my evaluation of the search services, I decided to look for photographs of beautiful places. First, I followed a navigational link to the Arts & Humanities catalog. The link brought me to a listing of sub headings and resources including news, fine arts, museums, and more. I chose the link to “Fine Arts”, and again I was provided with a list of subheadings and resources. Next, I chose a link to “Photography & Film”. From there I chose to browse around at the “Florida State Archive Photo Collection”, which was exactly the type of website that I was looking for. Every sub heading and resource was accompanied by a description of what you would find on the site. The setup of the site and the great descriptions provided with every search result made it easy to find what I was looking for.

Next, I did a query search for Florida photos. A number of websites related to Florida came up and since almost every one was accompanied by a description and the page was not cluttered with sponsored links or advertisements like some of the larger search engines, it was easy to pick and choose which site I wanted.

In the case that you do not find what you are looking for, the site offers a unique service called “Ask an IPL Librarian”. The service allows you to fill out a form with general information including your name, e-mail, requested information, a deadline, a list of sources you have already consulted, and your reason for requesting the information. Once the form is filled out you will get a response from a volunteer librarian who will try to help you find the information that you need. The site offers a detailed description of what the service is all about and what to expect from using it. There is also an advanced search option, tips for searching, and other places to go if you do not find what you are looking for on IPL.

I was impressed by the way that the information was presented. It seems as though the people who run this site really put a lot of time and effort into it. Although the site may not provide you with billions of responses and does not cover every possible subject like Google, the site was very well designed and would be very helpful for school projects or anything where you were looking for specialized information on a number of different general subjects. Doing this evaluation gave me a better understanding of how smaller search services operate, and I would definitely use this site again.