Library of Congress Launches International Resources Guide
The Library of Congress has launched a new online international project called Portals to the World, a guide to Internet resources dealing with the countries and regions of the world. Portals to the World (www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html) offers links to selective and authoritative electronic resources - arranged by country or geographic regions - with the links for each sorted in a wide range of broad categories. Typical categories are business, commerce, economy, culture, education, government, politics, law, history, libraries and archives, with some categories tailored to subjects of particular importance for the study of individual nations. In some cases, search engines local to that nation or language have also been included, as have links to worldwide organizations such as the World Bank and UNESCO.
To date, links to electronic resources for 41 countries are available, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Central Asian nations. When the project is completed in 2003, there will be a portal page for every nation of the world. Library of Congress, Washington, DC, (202) 707-2905, www.loc.gov.
This article originally appeared in the 02/01/2002 issue of THE Journal.