Scott’s Botanical Links <http://www.ou.edu/ cas/botany‐micro/bot‐linx/> is an incredible resource focusing on the educational and classroom aspects of botany. The site provides daily, annotated reviews on a none‐to‐four‐star scale of links relevant for those working in biology, botany, gardening, and biodiversity. Some of the resources include not only core botanical sites, but also links to search engines, software, listservs, and sites on general science, educational and curriculum development, horticulture and agriculture, medicinal plants and ethnobotany, cell and molecular biology, library resources, pictorial and multimedia resources, elementary school materials, and specialty areas. The site, which debuted in 1996, continues to be superbly maintained. Scott features a “Link‐of‐the‐Day” that is compiled into a retrievable monthly list as well as into a vast subject index. The innovative month and day retrieval (good for those who enjoy browsing), along with the Guestbook for comments, provides an automatic archive and charts the site’s evolution.
The site is uncluttered and logically organized, with a lovely spring green (with botany, could it be any other color?) background. The main pages that retrieve information from the site load quickly and are well organized into just a few subdirectories. Selections in a neatly designed table at the top of the opening page include: about, subject index, nominations, FAQ sheet, Internet search, past month, subscriptions, awards, guestbook, a bulletin board (closed at the moment), and botanical information on the WWW ‐ reprinted from Natural History Bookstore IBC Catalog (August 1999). Luckily, there are no distracting advertisements save a few Netscape and Explorer icons and awards agency logos, no doubt due to the educational host. Lower level pages change backgrounds: the Subject Index uses a rainbow background, and the FAQ sheet and guestbook boast backgrounds with subtle overlays faint enough that they don’t distract from the content.
The FAQ sheet describes the pages as consisting of two different sites: Link of the Day and Subject Index. The Link of the Day keeps users current in the discipline, and the subject index and search capability provide in‐depth research capability. Users will quickly discover that there is no ho‐hum alphabet linking to the meat of the site. Rather, there are nine format or area categories, including classroom‐of‐the‐Net, databases, general Internet resources, multimedia experiences, organizing class resources for the Internet, pictorial resources (illustrations), specialty, systematics, and Web resource pages for botany, all in a pull‐down menu. The final choice in that menu is Entire Listing, which brings up a 200‐plus‐kilobyte file of all of the nine categories above, further organized into narrower subject areas. Browsing these categories turns up delightfully unexpected finds: a “Plant evidence on the shroud of turin” site; and a site which “document[s] … plants named after personae and symbols of the Christian religion.” If appropriate, links are listed under two or more categories, such as the galleria carnivora (carnivorous plants), found under both specialty and under vascular plant morphology and evolution.
Users can perform a quick search by entering terms directly in the search box (also available on the home page), or choose a more sophisticated search page with Boolean, case sensitive, and visible/invisible URL options (a nice feature for older browsers and printouts). No instructions are given for truncation of search terms; however, both the standard question mark and asterisk work just fine. Search results are extremely useful. A quick search on the term “plant diversity” produced 15 matches, with the search strategy settings visible at the top of the page (default is AND, case insensitive, and no visible URL). Each result gives the title of the link, a very brief description, the visible URL if one chooses, the keywords or subject category used to index the link, and a small graphic that allows users to read Scott’s annotation before visiting the site itself. The search form also appears at the bottom of every search result page for easy reuse; however, the common links table and footer information are lacking on the search pages.
Scott provides his credentials on the FAQ sheet page. His academic, research, and teaching experience give the selections and annotations high credibility. The annotations are very literate and concise, yet written in an easy conversational style that appeals to all levels. Scott describes how to use each part of the site and identifies broken links (rather than simply removing them) by drawing a red X through the graphic linking to his annotation. He also has just begun identifying particularly authoritative sites with a red exclamation point, and his star ratings (or lack thereof) clearly identify the better sites for users. Other data provided include the number of visitors, with date ranges, and the number of subject categories and file sizes.
There are a few non‐botanical links: for example, the Internet Search selection links to “Wormhole to the rest of the Internet,” a gateway to many of the most powerful search engines. Scott gives due credit to a guest editor with good credentials who managed the site during his sabbatical from September 1997 to June 1998. A few of the links listed during that time seem a bit peripheral, such as MDChoice.com, but are delightful discoveries nonetheless. The depth and breadth of topics both core and peripheral but relevant to botany is another strength: casual users might not immediately connect pest management and botany, for example.
A lack of graphic images makes most of the site text easy to copy onto the clipboard for printing or exporting into word processing programs. The nominations section allows users to submit links for possible inclusion. Users can also request a regular subscription to the Link‐of‐the‐Day via e‐mail and can send in comments via the Guestbook.
Some additions that would improve the site include: adding the common links table and contact information to the search pages; adding a full mailing address and phone numbers for the author and institution on the FAQ sheet (the information listed here was extracted from the department’s home page); adding a link to the department’s home page; explaining or removing some of the zip files that appear in the subject index; and fixing the About page, which appears to be missing the initial information.
Scott’s Botanical Links has won 17 awards to date, and the daily links are summarized on Web Soup <http://www.ursus.net/ WebSoup/ws.html> and can be sent via e‐mail subscription.
There are other botany sites on the Internet, but most are much more limited in scope and provide less annotation. The Internet Directory for Botany (IDB) <http:// www.helsinki.fi/kmus/botmenu.html> is another comprehensive site, listing over 4,000 links organized in discrete categories with search features geared to a more professional audience. Scott’s and IDB list each other as well. The methodology of each site is different, but both provide common and individually unique resources. Scott’s is recommended over IDB for its ease of use, annotation, readability, and wider audience. However, IDB includes links to biologists’ addresses, museums, arboreta and herbaria, societies, and university departments that Scott’s lacks. Access to both would be preferred.
Scott’s Botanical Links is a highly recommended resource, appropriate for audiences from K‐12 through adult, for inclusion on all academic and public library Web pages. The site is comprehensive, easy to use, well documented, and highly credible, and it is one of the most current sites on the Internet.
