11twowebsites
Doing research on the Web is like using a library
assembled piecemeal by packrats and vandalized nightly.
—Roger Eberta
lthough the pi Cture is not quite this bleak here in the twenty-first cen-
tury (Ebert’s comment is from 1998), the old saying that the Internet
is “a mile wide and an inch deep” still rings true. Nevertheless the Web can
often be the best place to find the answer to a specific question or a source for
further information about a topic. However, reference librarians need to be
able to do more than just “google” a question. We need to know how to locate
accurate and authoritative websites both to answer patrons’ specific questions
and to recommend to them for their own research. William A. Katz wrote that
“reference librarians are the Lewis and Clark of the vast Net territory.”^1 And so
we are! Our profession includes a number of explorers and mapmakers who
have provided us with the charts and maps we need to navigate this wide,
wide world. Some of these are treated below.
MARS: Emerging Technologies in the Reference Section of ALA’s Reference
and User Services Association has been recognizing outstanding reference web-
sites for the last twelve years. The MARS Best Free Reference Websites Com-
mittee compiles an annual list of the best reference websites that is published
in Reference and User Services Quarterly. Among the selection criteria used are