Website Wednesday

When you wake up at midnight out of a sound sleep desiring to know the date of the first Peloponnesian War where do you go for your answer?

Not your brick and mortar information center, the public library; the doors are locked, the alarm is set, the research librarian is abed.

No, you go to the ubiquitous Internet for your answer.

And therein lies the problem.

The Internet is the greatest purveyor of knowledge in the world. It distributes the fantastically accurate knowledge and the fantastically bogus knowledge and leaves the reader to separate the wheat from the chaff. Which once you move from facts like “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” is not always that simple.

But there is excellent online help available at Finding Dulcinea: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/home.html

The mission statement of Finding Dulcinea is “to bring users the best information on the Web for any topic, employing human insight and methodical review.” It considers itself "The Librarian for the Internet Age" and I would say it’s fulfilling that goal.

First, the Finding Dulcinea site is worthwhile just to visit for pleasure reading. Right now, it has a array of topics such as Halloween Baking, Scuba Diving, poet Robert Pinksy, and the U.S. Economy. It’s a great site to bookmark and return to often.

However, Finding Dulcinea also has an invaluable section in its Guide to Web Search: How to Search the Web. From the Home Page, click on Web Guides (either in the top banner or the left column) and you’ll be taken to this site.

Cruising around the links found here both adults and children will get a thorough explanation of what’s on the Internet and how this information should be approached.

This is a must read for anyone reading the Internet for accuracy or anyone using the Internet for school research.

So go find Finding Dulcinea, it’s worth the trip.

The Flesch-Kincaid grade level of the writing found on the site is: 11.6+.