Title: Awesome Library
URL: http://www.awesomelibrary.com
Publisher: Evaluation and Development Institute
Cost: Free
Registration: Not required
Tested: February 22-25, 2001

I know that I am swimming against the current by opposing the self-named Awesome Library (a.k.a. neat-schoolhouse, another good name). It is a good gimmick because Web sites are judged by their title, just as books are judged by their cover — no matter what your grandmother taught you. I will refer to it simply as "the directory" to avoid promoting it by its misleading name.

This library is the work of Dr. Jerry R. Adams. I tried to find some publications by Dr. Adams — who, according to the Awsome Library "About" section, has been a consultant on many educational projects and sat on half a dozen advisory boards — but my efforts in the ERIC database failed to turn up any results.

The site's About page is full of politically correct terms used in grant proposals, strategic plans and TQM project documents. No wonder that the project got funded twice by the Department of Education. The casual visitors, the overloaded teachers and the parents who work three shifts may feel comfortable that, in between watching WWF broadcasts and Jerry Springer reruns, this site will broaden their kids' appreciation for different cultures and at the same time promote not only world peace but also a healthy life style . Who would dare argue with such noble goals? Well, these noble goals are like the ones that televangelists preach but do not exactly practice. The site promises to be a directory of 15,000 carefully reviewed resources. I have no way to check the numbers, but my tests showed that the sites are hardly reviewed and certainly not carefully. The duplicates and the dead links make the claim of 15,000 sites questionable. Next comes the issue of the quality of the selected sites, and that is my biggest qualm.

The list of sources that endorse this "directory" is impressive and at the same time depressing because it suggests that "reviewers" swallow the claims hook, line and sinker. We are inclined to accept recommendations by such authoritative sites as Britannica — indeed, an awesome free product (although their Web directory is definitely not). Once Britannica endorses a source by including it in its directory, hundreds of other Web directory compilers just copy the URL in their own listings without even looking. They are covered. The danger of this is that by mixing diamond and rust, the inferior products that use education as a front for their advertisement-hosting businesses get some clout. Listing them in the same directory as the excellent resources is as absurd as if I were listed in a directory of musicians next to Sir Georg Solti by virtue of being a Hungarian and whistling opera arias in the shower. Just because a resource has in its name education or encyclopedia or library does not imply that it is an acceptable source.

I got really alarmed when I saw that an outstanding source, the Librarians' Index to the Internet (see companion review, "Librarians' Index to the Internet," Péter's Digital Reference Shelf, /peter, March 2001) includes "the compilation." After all, the librarians working on the Librarians' Index to the Internet are really competent and choosy, so I revisited Dr. Adams' site. I found the same serious sloppiness, gross negligence and hypocrisy that put me off the first time and that stand in sharp contrast with the politically correct goals and statements proclaimed on the site.

Let me just illustrate on two examples which I am familiar with on how these noble principles are disregarded, then you may discover the same in the disciplines that you are the most familiar with. One is the category of country-specific information, the other is the category of encyclopedias. I picked these two because they are the bread and butter of any reference work, and I am not unfamiliar with such Web sites of good quality.

The Countries Links

The Social Studies category takes us through, rather redundantly, the Countries subcategory featuring only one entry, and then on to the Local Information section. The Arctic Circle, although not a country, deserves to have a space in the Local Information section. Students will be excited to see that there are six links to sites about this region, only to be disappointed when they find that four of the six links are dead.

The list of selection criteria proudly professes that only sites with "small percentage of dead links" would qualify. I don't argue about what is a small percentage, but this looks to me more like a mortuary where finding a live site is the exception. The criteria list then goes to claim that "later the resource may need to be removed because it no longer meets all of the conditions and standards." Nice talk, the Department of Education loves it, but Dr. Adams should follow his own criteria and remove the dead links from this site. Removing the corps would undoubtedly promote a healthy lifestyle. In response to my inquiry, Dr. Adams indicated that only 2.5% of the links are dead. My test showed a much higher percentage in this directory, and even higher in some of the sites recommended.

Scanning the beginning of the list shows that some countries appear twice in the list with the same name, like Cote d'Ivoir (which also appears later as Ivory Coast, although without indicating that it is a cross reference). Another country, Sao Tome and Principe, whose relevance may justify its double listing gets a little worse treatment being misspelled as Saotome. It links to the Allafrica site of newswire stories not the AfricaNews Online site indicated in the link name. It includes news sources from all the countries of Africa, but it is hardly the best designed site about contemporary events in Africa.

Perhaps the principle of diversity and appreciation for other cultures caused Awesome Library to ignore the fact that most of the news about Sao Tome and Principe, as well as for many Central and Western African countries, are in French. Although many K-12 students may be polyglot, the rest of them perhaps should be warned in a summary of the carefully reviewed sites that French is required for appreciation of most other cultures in francophone Africa. Yes, there is an English language subset of the Allafrica site, but navigating through the news with one or two English language items (sometimes in duplicates) here and there is way beyond the attention span of K-12 students, even of those who may pine for appreciating diversity. (The site also touts the ability to browse in French, Spanish, German or Portuguese. This is true only to an extent. It uses Alta Vista's Babel Fish to translate the pages it pulls up. The problem is that it only translates the first screen's worth of information. These are not native language versions of Awesome Library.)

Geographic literacy is certainly high on the agenda of the education system, but listing Equatorial among the countries, then reinforcing the impression that Equatorial is a country in the blurb does not help the case. Of course, a good teacher (if one happens to be around) can turn such a snafu into an educational exercise, asking students if there is a country whose name in another language is Equator, but the poor students are out of luck as Ecuador does not merit an entry on the compilation's list. Which brings me to another question: Why is it that only about half of the UN member states got an entry on this page?

I wonder how it is going to promote world peace when Peru gets an entry but Ecuador and Bolivia don't. Why does India gets one, but not Pakistan? For that matter Scandinavian and Eastern European countries are not listed (with the exception of Norway). About 70 other countries are similarly ignored, even though there are highly relevant sites about them. Why bother to make such a list when there are really comprehensive sites with well-balanced coverage of all countries and useful links? Without any explanation, such haphazardly compiled lists just misinform users and paint a distorted picture of the world.

The Encyclopedia category

The encyclopedia category in this "directory" lists 14 encyclopedias. Make it 13 as the Davis Encyclopedia appears both as #1 and #11 with slightly different names. The latter entry claims that the Davis Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive encyclopedia using Web sources. In his disclaimer, Mr. Davis mentions that it is not really an encyclopedia but an encyclopedic index. It is neither. It is a hodge podge of words with links to resources. A very large number of links, including all the ones to biographies in the A&E Biography database, are dead. You can see a little sample of the Z section of this encyclopedia, along with my commentary, here to get a feel for the absurdity of this "encyclopedia."

Still, the Davis Encyclopedia is the only one that deserved Awesome Library's star logo. Pity the poor Britannica and Encarta sites that did not get this award. It is enigmatic why the star appears only at one entry but not the other about the very same resource that has identical URL. Then again, it improved since my previous visit when this "encyclopedia" appeared on the list three times. Now look at the seven general encyclopedia recommendations and annotations in the Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII) and explain to me why LII is cited less often in Web guides than this "compilation." Most of Dr. Adams' other choices are also troublesome.

The next recommendation, Encyberpedia, is another collection of links to Web resources, i.e. a directory, not an encyclopedia. Its "annotations" are clippings from the publicity blurb of the sites. The most characteristic features are the duplicate entries; still, it made into the directory.

The Berea High School Encyclopedia may have been an appropriate homework site for a group of students, but it is merely a collection of links about topics with no rhymes or reason. The National Geographic site does not claim that it is an encyclopedia, but Dr. Adams claims that it is. It has eight topics. The one on history has three short entries about Galleons, the Titanic and West Indies. That's it. Sure, National Geographic is a highly reputable name, perfect for name dropping, but it does not belong in the category of encyclopedia with the pseudo name that the directory granted it.

The encyclopedia in another listed source, StudyWeb, is again a directory not an encyclopedia. The "encyclopedia" subcategory was obviously an afterthought for StudyWeb as it is tucked at the end of the list of Directories and Lookups Index out of the alphabetical order. It touts a feature that indicates the grade level for which a source is recommended. Seeing that Britannica is recommended by B. B. Stella from Grade 6 you may wonder how appropriate this feature is. I don't understand either why B. B. Stella gave N/A for visual content in Britannica that has excellent images and maps, but I find it a lesser problem than the fact that it appears right next to the Davis Encyclopedia, giving the latter a clout.

Do your own test

Could at least librarians stop this cycle of madness and eliminate links to inane sources? According to Alexa, this directory has 9,791 link-ins, the Davis Encyclopedia has 14,206, and LII only 1,620. This does not include the links to the former name of LII, but few users would know that. Plus, according to Alexa, the Librarians' Index to the Internet is ranked 25,278th in popularity, the Awesome Library is 34,796th, and the Davis Encyclopedia is 38,998th. This is frighteningly close. It is like lumping together Bernard Malamud with authors of those novels left on a seat at the airport that you don't pick up even if your flight is endlessly delayed and you have nothing else to read. I am skeptical that my crusade will change the situation, but I try and I invoke the help of someone who was the only one I know of to speak up against these inane Web sites that pollute the people's minds and get more accolades and traffic than the really good resources. Jim Rettig, one of the best reference reviewers, wrote in his 1997 gale.com reference review that

[the compilers of the Davis encyclopedia] . . . ask for 'useful comments and suggestions.' Here's one — shut this site down and replace it with an explanation of why information seekers should use real encyclopedias that have benefitted from the cooperative, synergistic involvement of professional editors and publishers working with authoritative authors who organize and synthesize knowledge into an informative whole composed of many parts interrelated within an overall plan to meet the needs of a clearly defined readership.

Obviously, his advise was not taken, and people (including many librarians with master's degree) keep linking to this and other products, that should have the label "dangerous to your health." This directory identifies them as the best in the encyclopedia category. To aggravate the situation then, even the best Web guides recommend the Awesome Library. Compilers of Web guides should recognize that most of these inferior Web sites with buzz words like education, world peace, kids, and cultural diversity on their home page are after eyeballs of teachers, parents and students and then use their visitor statistics to increase their ad rates. Think before you click.

If you have gotten this far, go for a test. Look up some topic in the Librarians' Index to the Internet directory, then in this directory. Compare the results. Ask yourself this question: Do I want my child to be guided by this directory or by the Librarians' Index to the Internet? E-mail me the answer, please.