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Archive for the 'Web Site Review' Category


Allmusic.com

Posted by buckeyebrarian on April 8, 2008

Allmusic.com - http://www.allmusic.com/ - 3 Stars

It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed a site, so I thought I ought to get my but in gear. Up today is Allmusic, music’s answer to IMDb.

I really like this site, and for a person working an information desk in a public library branch or a reference desk in a music\arts library it is invaluable. It has a huge number of reviews, bios, discographies, and other info on various artists, groups, and composers. There’s quite a bit of album art as well, so if you’re iTunes library is a little plain, so this is a good source for those obscure classical music album covers.

Allmusic has a lot of nice review articles and the Allmusic blog, which highlights new albums, features artists, and posts music news. It includes a new releases section and a nice search function that does a commendable job helping the user find the album or artist for which he’s looking. Many albums also have track previews, which will help you identify the song you heard on the radio while driving home.

On the downside, the site is chock full of ads which is irksome at the very least. The site is also incredibly cluttered, with nothing in the way of “white space”. One does not really know what to look at on the home page. It definitely has the look of a page trying to squeeze in more than it should while keeping the ads nice and visible.

Posted in Libraries & Prof., Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

Fantastic Fiction

Posted by buckeyebrarian on May 30, 2007

Fantastic Fiction - http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ - 3 Stars

Many who know me have heard me extoll the virutes of this site. It allows a person armed with an author or title to find other books by the same author. The site is great for determining the next book in a series and its faster than using a database like Novelist (if you don’t know about Novelist, ask a librarian its great!).

This site is easy enough to browse and search within its focus. Most books are linked to amazon so yoy can get a hold of a copy. The site has cover images, and often has them for multiple editions, so if you can only remember the cover of a book you read in the past the site can be really helpful. The site is not the most attractive out there but it is very functional. Some author pages have listings of books recomended by the author. This is really cool as it often exposes one to new and more obscure authors.

Posted in Internet, Reader's Advisory, Technology, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

Sky and Telescope Magazine

Posted by buckeyebrarian on May 17, 2007

Sky and Telescope Magazine - http://skytonight.com/ - 2.5 Stars

Sky and Telescope’s site offers a lot of neat stuff for telescope and astronomy enthusiasts, including cool columns, stargazing tools, blogs, feeds, and more. One can learn how to start with this hobby and ways to get involved with the stargazing community.

The site looses ground with me as far as the layout is concerned, as its really busy. It also includes ads which always irritate. If the ads weren’t thematically related to the site I would have taken off another half star on my rating.

Give the site a look, and be patient.

Posted in Libraries & Prof., Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

PDF Online

Posted by buckeyebrarian on May 14, 2007

PDF Online - https://www.pdfonline.com/convert_pdf.asp - 4 Stars

I just discovered this at work today! This free service allows one to convert numerous popular document and image formats to PDF. Now I know this is nothing new, but its special to me because its all online! Where I work, I cannot install the software or drivers necessary to use most of the PDF coversion solutions and therefore could only make PDFs by printing the document, and scanning it to PDF on our RICOH copier. This naturally degraded quality significantly and was, needless to say a hassle. This free online site does the conversion with no messy real world interaction, creating crisp PDFs that look like the original document.

The site is easy to use and feature rich. All the most popular Microsoft document formats and most image formats are included! The site does load slow so be patient! Also be patient when uploading, as, quite naturally, some files take a while to upload. It only takes a short while after that for the file to show up in your mailbox. Highly recommended, especially used in conjunction with a mail service like Gmail or Yahoo mail for PDF creation on the go!

Posted in Libraries & Prof., Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

Citizendium and Maritime Art Greenwich

Posted by buckeyebrarian on April 16, 2007

To atone for the lack of posts, here are two offerings.

Citizendium - en.citizendium.org - 3 Stars

Citizendium, the brainchild of Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger, can be thought of as the librarian’s answer to Wikipedia. It uses the same free-content paradigm as Wikipedia and the same communal elements. However, unlike Wikipedia Citizendium adds an element of oversight and editorial control aimed at ensuring the quality of the information included in the site’s articles.

The format will be familiar to those who use Wikipedia regularly with a clean uncluttered interface and muiltimedia articles. The authors and editors are required to give their real names and a short biography describing their qualifications. The site includes numerous other measures designed to ensure good content please refer to The Big Cleanup page on the site for more information (http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:The_Big_Cleanup).

This is a librarian’s dream come true! We’re trained to look for authoritative and stable sources to the information we find our patrons. Citizendium promises to combine the advantages of authoritative sources with the communal benefits of Wikipedia. The site does not currently have many articles compared to that available from Wikipedia, but its still in a beta stage. So spread the word and if you’re a Wikipedian, consider getting involved with this new exciting project.

Maritime Art Greenwich - www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/ - 4 Stars

This site is fantastic! Okay, so it satisfies something of a niche interest, but its cool all the same. It’s maintained by the Great Britain’s National Maritime Museum and displays quality images of “oil painting collection.” “The website offers a searchable database of selected paintings plus in-depth content on some of the major themes of maritime art.” The paintings are beautiful and are available in sizes sufficient to study.

The site is easily searchable and browseable with the “explore the catalog” button. The “in-depth” button includes some interesting educational content pertaining to artistic and maritime subjects. The site is attractive and well laid out. Its worth a look!

Posted in Internet, Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

HowStuffWorks

Posted by buckeyebrarian on March 22, 2007

HowStuffWorks - www.howstuffworks.com/ - 3 Stars

HowStuffWorks is a really fun site and very informative. It provides articles on how things work from “British Titles of Nobility” to “Comets”. The articles are in plain English as benefits the general audience they target.

Most importantly, it is not the public that contributes the articles like Wikipedia. Instead, the contributers are genuine experts, including lawyers and PhDs, working in the field they are asked to write about. One can click on the authors name to see their credentials. In doing so, one does find that some authors write on topics that they don’t have an obvious expertise and there is nothing said about what their qualification to write on that topic is. This is troublesome. However, from what I can gather, for some topics it is presumed that an ability to research and write effectively is important. Obvious efforts are taken to research topics as many articles include acknowledgments to other experts for their assistance.

The site is well designed, but it is a bit more cluttered than I usually prefer.

Posted in Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

Gamespot and ESRB.org

Posted by buckeyebrarian on March 21, 2007

There’s two sites on the docket for today’s post, something fun and something related, but more sober:

Gamespot - www.gamespot.com - 3.5 Stars

Gamespot is my personal favorite site when it comes to gaming news. The site is a great source for information on games new and old for PC or any major (and most minor) console system in existence, past and present.

Actually, I’d more accurately describe Gamespot as an electronic magazine. It includes many of the same things like feature articles and game reviews, but is usually updated 5-6 days a week. The core of the content are the game reviews in my opinion. Their rating system is on a 10 point scale and is well described on the site. Few games get 10s and fewer get 0s, with most games seeming to fall in the 6-8 range. Gamespots editorial policy is availble though the “about us” page accessible by scrolling to the bottom.

In addition to this more “traditional” content, Gamespot has a lot of multimedia content including downloads, video, screenshots, and podcasts. It also includes many features like fourms and the ability to maintain a “wishlist” and “owned list” which really lend it a sense of community (for good or ill).

The layout of the site is busy, but consistent, so its easy to learn to navigate. The site is more conducive to browsing (read: the searching stinks). Be prepared to play and explore a little bit when you visit the first couple times.

Entertainment Software Rating Board - www.esrb.org - 4 Stars

This is a very well constructed site. For those not in the know, the Entertainment Software Rating Board is the group that decides what rating symbol ends up on the game boxes you buy. Their website is an excellent extension of their mission to help parents keep track of what games their kids are playing.

The site includes resources for parents and children that explain the rating system and define the “content” codes on the ESRB labels among other things. The site also includes a great “webliography”that lists other sites that will be of use to parents.

However, the center of attention is and should be the search interface. It allows the user to search by Publisher or Title keyword, by Rating, by Platform (PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox…), or by content (mild violence, etc.). This lets you print out great lists of titles to refer to while doing christmas shopping, for example. Overall, one of the best intersite search tools I’ve seen.

Posted in Gaming, Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

Clusty

Posted by buckeyebrarian on March 20, 2007

Clusty - clusty.com - 3 Stars

Okay, so I say that I’m not going to review a search engine, and then I go and review a search engine in my third post. What gives? Well Clusty is just that cool.

In my defense, Clusty is not a search engine, its a metasearch engine (Yeah Mike, BIG difference). If you aren’t aware, a metasearch engine queries several search engines at once. So Clusty’s results tend to cover a lot of ground. The excellent thing about Clusty is the way it organizes search results by grouping them by subject, so not only are the results more complete, but they’re also more useful.

The interface clean and straightforward to use. It includes a filter for adult sites. You can also use the interface to search to news, images, wikipedia, blogs, jobs, and more. What’s more, the site is now completely “Wii Friendly” (If you don’t know what that means, then it probably doesn’t apply to you.) Look in the “about” page to find out how to add a Clusty Cloud to your blog or website like the one at the bottom of this page.

Posted in Internet, Reference, Technology, Web 2.0, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »

Internet Movie Database

Posted by buckeyebrarian on March 20, 2007

Internet Movie Database - http://www.imdb.com/ - 4 Stars

Internet Movie Database is the gold standard of cinema information. Librarians love it for its usability and comprehensiveness. One can find information on films, tv shows, filmmakers, actors, and more from around the world. A great source of trivia and source of information for bar bets.

Home page has film industry news and lists of the new and top films and DVDs.

You can also use the site to purchase movie tickets, talk about movies, and even post your resume so you can get a job in the film industry yourself!

Posted in Reference, Web Site Review, eReference | No Comments »