Expanding Audiences for Education-Related Information and Resources: Classificatory Structures on the World Wide Web

Education is a culturally and politically branded domain of knowledge and practice, and education specialists have traditionally remained somewhat isolated, communicating mainly on the general level of “basic educational principles.” The expansion of the World Wide Web could change this situation; there exist on the Web a substantial number of education-related resources which have become accessible to international audiences. In this paper, the authors look at how these resources are organized with a view to answering two questions: (1) In a context of global exchanges, are education-related resources available on the Web organized in such a way as to maximize efficiency of identification and retrieval? (2) In virtual libraries with specialized collections on education, do categorization schemes and terminology reflect anything other than local perspectives and systems? [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]