A portal or gateway site is the best place to begin research. These sites, which are intended to serve as "jumping off" points, will lead the researcher to a variety of useful sources that have been selected because of their relevance or quality. A portal site may include thousands of links on a wide range of topics, or may be very specific in scope and point to a small number of resources.
Portal sites may allow keyword searching, provide topical, hierarchical browsing (drilling down) or both search and browse capabilities. Another useful starting point for research is the search engine, particularly those that are subject-specific.
intute: Creative and Performing Arts
http://www.intute.ac.uk/creativearts/
Intute organizes over 18,000 Web resources for education and research and makes them searchable by keywords or browsing. These resources are "selected and evaluated by a network of subject specialists."
FindSounds
http://www.findsounds.com/
A Web search engine for sound effects and musical instrument samples.
INFOMINE: Visual and Performing Arts
http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?arts
A searchable database of art resources on the Web. Limit your search by database fields or browse by subject, author, keyword or title. Each site listed in the database is described in a concise annotation. Find galleries, journals, directories, databases and more on this site.
Rootster: A Search For Culture
http://www.rootster.com/
Bills itself as a "small, edited database of interesting Web sites for words, music, images and ideas". Some of the topics are gypsy culture, accordions, Cuban music, and hoboes.
The Internet Public Library Subject Collections (IPL)
http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/
Core internet resources are arranged by discipline and then by more specific subject area. An option is also available to find associations or serials related to the subject. These sites have been selected and organized by librarians. A link to pathfinders on very specific topics is also available.
Search Engine Guide
http://www.searchengineguide.com/
This guide indexes over 3,000 directories and search engines. Organized by category and searchable by keyword.
