Academic Info

About Academic Info - Collection Development Policy

About

Mission

Improve access to online educational resources by developing an easy to use subject directory covering each academic discipline.

Maintenance
Mike Madin is responsible for the contents of Academic Info. After ten years at the University of Washington Gallagher Law Library Mike left in 2000 to work full time on Academic Info. After experimenting with several business models Academic Info now offers online advertising and page sponsorship opportunities to remain online.

Collection Development Policy

Academic Info adds between 200 and 500 new resources each month.
The primary focus of the site must be academic, with its intended audience at the upper high school level or above. A priority is adding digital collections from libraries, museums, and academic organizations and sites offering unique online content. Will add annotated subject directories but not sites with only a "list of links."

The current focus is on English language resources but will selectively consider sites in other languages. Some sections will have an obvious American emphasis (The Student Center, listings of academic departments) but over time a real effort will be to become more international.

To be added the site must be current and kept current. The weeding of broken and outdated links is as important as adding new ones.

Do not include support groups, advocacy or tribute pages.

Be selective in adding material easily accessible in other formats such as journal articles or brief bios of historic individuals. Exceptions are legal and religious documents and other primary source materials where it is advantageous to work with a searchable text.

Try to link to a trustworthy site for academic departments instead of maintaining a listing here. The maintenance commitment is too great.

Include dissertations and preliminary research only if requested by the author.

Add museums, archives and libraries only if they make research material available online or if their collection is unique enough to warrant special notice. Will add online catalogs of selected research and national libraries.