What? Why? For whom? By whom? Criteria for inclusion Annotations and update frequency List of recent additions "In the news" links

File types/abbreviations Biweekly digests with email notification Navigating between pages Finding your link on pages WWW-help Linking to Geosource Feedback Something completely different

always moving paper and bits

Geosource is a collection of links to webpages with information in the subjects that are being taught and studied in the Faculty of Geographical Sciences of Utrecht Unversity, Netherlands. These are:

- Cartography
- Environmental Science and Policy Studies
- Human Geography
- Physical Geography
- Planning Science

Cartography is a special case. Despite some basic links beings present in Geosource, we suggest you use Oddens's Bookmarks, which is currently the foremost subject guide in that field. It is developed and maintained by the map curator of the Map library of the Utrecht University, Roelof Oddens.

Why?

The internet and the World Wide Web in particular are perceived as an information source that is at the same time immensely large and immensely chaotic. However, no one can afford to overlook the WWW, since it provides fast and often unique information. To guide your way through the web we have designed Geosource. It aims to provide an extensive and thoroughly categorised subject gateway to relevant webpages. Doing so, it fills the gap between searching for individual specialised pages (for which general full text search engine are the appropriate tool) and general, non-academic web browsing (for which web directories such as Yahoo and the like are the most apt).

For Whom?

Geosource intends to serve the academic community in the field of geography and planning and (to a lesser extent) geoscience and environmental science. However, teachers in secondary education and professionals in the fields of planning, research and consultancy may find it valuable as well. Many organizations and individuals have already linked to GEOSOURCE. Here is a list of these reciprocal links.

By Whom?

GEOSOURCE is compiled, updated and maintained by Jeroen Bosman, subject librarian for Geography, cartography, Planning and Environmental Science at the Uithof Library Centre of the Utrecht University Library. There is also input from some unofficial 'correspondents':
- Canada: Mark Collins
- Eastern Europe: Drs. Leo Paul, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Utrecht University
- Earth Science: Drs. Lidy Jansen, Faculty of Earth Sciences Library, Utrecht University
- Mexico: Dr. Álvaro Sánchez Crispín, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - Instituto de Geografía
Although their assistance is gratefully acknowledged (thanks!), the correspondents are not in any way accountable for the eventual appearance and quality of the respective sections of GEOSOURCE.

How?

criteria for inclusion
Sites and pages are considered relevant if they relate to one of the above subject fields or if they are considered useful in the study of these subjects. Generally links are made to homepages, as their web addresses (URL's) are more stable than pages tucked away many levels deep in websites.
Generally subjects and sub-subjects are not covered if there are other subject guides or gateway pages covering them in a fairly comprehensive en systematic way. If so there are of course links to these other subject guides (as with Oddens's Bookmarks for cartography and maps).
GEOSOURCE does not include site rating, but a very small selection of sites gets the label TOPSOURCE, solely on the value of the site's content.

annotations, update frequency
Almost every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, around 9:00 hours GMT new links are added. They can be found in the "recent additions" section and in the respective categories. Links are annotated, except where titles speak for themselves. These annotations come with a date, indicating when the pages were last reviewed. Annotated sites are reviewed at least once every year. Addresses (URL's) are checked every three months. If bad links are encountered, they are corrected. If the correct URL caanot be found, the link will remain on the list for another three months, with a warning in red ("BAD LINK" or "NO SUCH HOST", or "SERVER TIMOUT"). If you know the correct URL for one of these links, please notify me!

list of new additions
You can keep track of new adittions by regularly viewing the page with new additions. Old new additions are in the archive files listed at the bottom of the new additions page.

"in the news" links
Starting September 14, 1999 the recent additions listing includes links to websites relating to relevant current affairs and events. The caption is: in the news...... These links may or may not be included in the general Geosource categories.

file types
As a rule links are to HTML documents. If crucial information can only be accessed by starting other file types this is indicated in the annotation or between [] in the title of the link. Types encountered frequently are PDF (portable document file, requiting the Acrobat reader, Apple Quicktime, requiring the Quicktime multimedia player and Real Audio, requiring the Real Player). If the link leads to audio fragments this is indicated by the label AUDIO.

biweekly digest of updates with E-mail notification
There is a biweekly digest newsletter with descriptions and URL's of websites added to Geosource. Please send an E-mail message stating the E-mail address at which you would like to receive these Geosource updates notification. The notification also contains the plain text version of the updates, with full links.

navigation between pages
At the top of each page, there is a link back to the main index page. Please use this to navigate between the categories. Alternatively your may use the links in the yellow navigation bar at the bottom (or top) of the pages.

finding your link on the pages
You can easily locate the information on each page by using the page index at the top. Alternatively you may wish to use the search facility of your browser to locate words or phrases on a long page (Edit|Find or control-F)). The get back to the top of the page, please use control-home keys.

www-help
The use of Geosource is an aid for the exploration of the World Wide Web. Anyone not yet familiar with using the web and tracing information in cyberspace, there is a WWW-guide available tailored to the needs of geographers and the like (as yet only in Dutch, but some tables have titles in English and may be of value to you even if you do not master the Dutch language).

linking to Geosource
Webmasters are kindly invited to link to Geosource, preferably to its homepage at http://www.library.uu.nl/geosource. The intention is to continue with Geosource in the public domain for the years to come and to provide regular updates. Please send a message stating you have made a link, so I can notify you in case the Geosource files move to another server location.

feedback
These pages are compiled by Jeroen Bosman. Suggestions and comments are most welcome and are dealt with immediately. Please send them to j.bosman@library.uu.nl

Something completely different
The GEOSOURCE webdirectory is not the only Geosource around. There are some other websites under this name:
Geosource Inc., an intermediary for geosynthetics and specialized geotechnical products
Geosource Home Page, a vendor of earth science educational products

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