Scholarly Information Gateways

Information gateways are used to find scholarly Online resources on a selected topic.

General Gateways
Subject Specific Gateways: Middle Ages

General Gateways

Intute

http://www.intute.ac.uk/

This gateway allows you to find high quality online resources in the following disciplines:

• Arts & Humanities
• Social Sciences
• Science & Technology
• Health & Life Sciences

The results displayed from these search engines include a short paragraph describing what each online resource offers. This explanation helps the reader to determine if the resource is useful to him/her. Each record also contains a link to the site being discussed, the date this site was recorded, and the type of resources it contains.

The British Academy Portal

http://www.britac.ac.uk/portal/

A directory of online resources available in the humanities and social sciences. It's target audience is higher education and researchers. See these categories that are the most relevant:

Medieval Studies: History and Literature

Early Modern History to C1800

Librarians' Internet Index

http://lii.org/search?basic_search=1

See the Humanities section (http://lii.org/search/file/humanities) for links to medieval topics on history, literature, philosophy, etc. Examples:

History > Middle Ages

Literature > Literary Movements by Period > Medieval

INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections

http://infomine.ucr.edu/

INFOMINE contains quality Online resources for these subject areas:

• Biology, Agriculture, & Medical Sciences
• Business & Economics
• Cultural Diversity
• Government Information
• Maps & GIS
• Physical Science, Engineering, Computer Science, & Math
• Social Sciences & Humanities
• Visual & Performing Arts
• E-journals

Although this site is not part of the Resource Discovery Network, this gateway is similar in lay out.

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Subject Specific Gateways: Middle Ages

Use these information gateways to find quality Online resources dealing with medieval and early modern studies:

NetSerf offers a list of useful Internet resources that is arranged according to particular topics. Only the most popular sub-categories seem to be listed for each topic, so be sure to click on the major topic heading (i.e. history) in order to see all of the sub-categories. There are annotations given for some of the sites, many of which are excerpts taken from the site itself.

NetSerf covers the following topics: Archeology, architecture, art, Arthuriana, civilizations, culture, drama, history, law, literature, music, people, philosophy, religion, science & technology, women, research center. The sections for art and history have the most extensive listing of resources. The literature section will also be useful for students (see the works by author or title). The most well developed part of the site is the Research Center. It contains excellent resources for the following areas: Associations & Organizations, Bibliographies, Mailing Lists & Newsgroups, and Maps.

One final tool that will help the student of medieval studies is an extensive glossary of terms (containing 1499 words). Some of the terms are very specific, including Latin words. More general words on medieval culture can be found in the glossary-although it was odd that I couldn't find the word chivalry defined. A nice feature of having the glossary Online is that related terms are hyperlinked.

The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies (ORB)

http://www.the-orb.net/

"The ORB is an academic site, written and maintained by medieval scholars for the benefit of their fellow instructors and serious students. All articles have been judged by at least two peer reviewers." (Excerpt taken from the ORB Website)

Parts of ORB

Encyclopedia : Offers links to other Websites, as well as informative essays and bibliographies by scholars. The encyclopedia is divided chronologically (Early, High, & Late Middle Ages) as well as by topic. However, some sections are better developed than others. For example, the sections on religion and culture are quite large; while there is only slight coverage for the languages/literature section and medieval Slavic/Russian resources. Also be aware that some pages have not been updated and have a lot of broken links.

Online Textbooks : This section does not contain monographs as the name implies. Instead, it mostly contains links to full-text excerpts taken from professor's lectures, as well as various Online resources. This section is a good tool for gaining background information on a topic that is covered.

What Every Medievalist Should Know (WEMSK): Basically, this section contains 45 bibliographies browseable either by topic or alphabetically.

Note: To find other bibliographies, enter the terms 'onsite bibliographies' into ORB's search box. One will get a listing of topics that have extensive bibliographies (arranged by topic).

E-Texts : This link offers new transcriptions and/or translations of medieval texts.

Reference Shelf : More links to primary and secondary works on the Web (some full-text). The major medieval gateways are all listed at the top of the page. Scroll down the page to find the 'Links to Individual Documents on the Web' section. This list of alphabetically arranged topics links directly to full-text at other major sites (i.e. Online Medieval and Classical Library, Electronic Text Center). Just be aware that this section has not been updated and broken links abound.

External Sites : Offers links to a variety of other medieval sites Online.

Medieval Studies for the Non-Specialist : A Guide to Online Resources (General Interest link). As the name implies, this section of ORB strives to examine how the Middle Ages is represented in popular movies, television, and historical fiction. The goal is to provide resources that will help to answer questions about historical accuracy. For example, ORB provides lists of movies, bibliographies on topics and personages, as well as a list of historical fiction that will be of interest to adults and younger audiences.