Survey Text As Sent

We would very much appreciate your assistance. We are a group of librarians performing a qualitative review of Internet megasites which collect links to health sciences information. Your site has been selected as one of the top 25 sites. Our criteria for selection were that the site collect links outside of its own provided content; that it include information on a wide variety of health sciences topics, and that the site contain a substantial number of links in each subject area.

Our purpose in collecting this information is to assist health sciences reference librarians and their clientele in choosing the best health sciences megasites for addressing their specific questions or general information needs. We will be providing the information we gather to health sciences librarians, initially through a paper presentation at an upcoming regional conference, and subsequently in a national research journal.

If you could please answer the following few questions in the next week, this will enable us to provide the most comprehensive and accurate analysis of your site. If there is any information which you would prefer we not share in our published article (such as personal e-mail addresses), please inform us at this time.

1. Name and URL of your site:
2. Contact person (name and e-mail address):
3. Who is responsible for site maintenance, if different from above?
4. Who is responsible for quality control of the site, if different from above?
5. Do you have a clearly defined policy for determining links to be added? If so, would you be willing to share a copy of that statement (please attach to your reply)?
6. How is the decision made to add a new link? Who makes the final decision if more than one individual is involved (occupation/position of person, such as librarian, physician, other--please specify)?
7. How often are links scheduled to be checked/updated? Is this schedule able to be adhered to?
8. What is your estimated response time to email requests to the site?

   Thank you very much for your assistance.

   Nancy Allee, Jean Chung, Brian Westra; University of Michigan
   Virginia Lingle; Penn State University
   Pat Anderson; Northwestern University