michigan informatics

Web Gateways

Gateways, also known as subject directories, metasites, portals, and web guides, are another approach to searching for information on the Web. They are guides to Internet resources which are pre-selected and evaluated by information professionals. Gateways allow you to quickly find quality information without sifting through thousands of search engine results. Therefore, beginning your research at one of these gateways, rather than at a search engine like Google, will save you considerable time and effort.

Advantages of using gateway sites

• The resources are hand-selected by people, so someone, somewhere, thinks that the sites included are of high quality
• The resources are pre-evaluated, which means that if the gateway site is created by a trusted source, like the National Library of Medicine, then you do not need to spend as much time evaluating the site yourself
• Sometimes being able to browse a list of resources is much easier than searching for something specific, especially if you do not know exactly what terms to use
• Subject guides provide good overviews of what types of resources are available on the Internet on a given topic
  

Disadvantages of gateway sites are

• The resources are hand-selected by people. No one is perfect and no one has the time to create the perfect subject guide
• They usually have uneven coverage
• They cannot possibly be comprehensive (even of the best sites)
• The selection of sites is very subjective
• They easily become out of date

If you can find a good gateway site for the topic you are searching on, then your task is made enormously easier.

Good examples of gateways to useful public health web sites

MedlinePlus
Created by the National Library of Medicine for use by the general public, MedlinePlus is the premier Web site for finding authoritative information on a wide array of health and medical topics. MedlinePlus includes extensive information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted sources on over 650 diseases and conditions. There are also directories of hospitals and physicians, a medical encyclopedia and a medical dictionary, health information in Spanish, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, health information from the media, and links to thousands of clinical trials.

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce
The Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce Web site is a primary gateway to public health resources. A collaborative project between government agencies and professional organizations, the Web site seeks to help the public health workforce find and use information effectively to improve and protect the public's health. Containing a broad range of important and useful web resources for public health professionals, the site includes information and links for health promotion and health education, statistics, grants and funding, legislation, conferences/meetings, training opportunities for health professionals, jobs/careers, and more.

HealthWeb
HealthWeb is a large directory of annotated and credentialed health information websites for both health care professionals and the public. A collaborative project of over twenty health sciences libraries in the Midwest, HealthWeb contains information on most biomedical and health-related topics.