SSG‐FI – special subject gateways to high quality Internet resources for scientific users

Project SSG‐FI at the Lower Saxony State and University Library, Göttingen (Germany) provides special subject gateways to international high quality Internet resources for scientific users. Internet sites are selected by subject specialists and described using an extension of qualified Dublin Core metadata. A basic evaluation is added. These descriptions are freely available and can be searched and browsed. There are now subject gateways for three subject areas: earth sciences (Geo‐guide); mathematics (Mathguide); and Anglo‐American culture (split into History guide and Anglistik guide). Together they receive about 3,300 “hard” requests per day, thus reaching over 1 million requests per year. The project SSG‐FI behind these guides is open to collaboration. Institutions and private persons wishing to contribute can notify the SSG‐FI team or send full data sets. Regular contributors can request registration with the project to access the database via the Internet and create and edit records.