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A - Z Indexes on the web

An annotated sampler


May, 2002

Site Organization Content Objects (1) Type (2) Comment
Montague Institute professional development services primarily Montague Institute Review articles, seminar descriptions dynamic One-level. Frames used to keep top levels in view. Includes cross references, definitions. Links to related indexes for subjects, people, organizations, chronological list of articles. Index is updated automatically when new entries are added to the Institute's Knowledge Base.
Dr. Web Magazin portal for web designers articles about web site design static Articles contain links to related articles
American Association of Artificial Intelligence membership organization services and links of interest to members static Bold face used for primary topics. Two levels. Cross references. Drop-down lists for major topics.
Murdoch University university (Australia) university department web sites static Includes search box and major topics. Index terms contain many cross references to university departments.
European Commission non-government agency web sites
documents
other indexes showing major activities and divisions		 static Two levels. Multi-lingual. Many terms link to pages that contain a more specific A - Z index. Icons used for language and format (i.e. PDF). Nice layout.
Omniglot personal web site alphabets and writing systems static Small, one-level index. Nice layout. No cross references.
First Financial Federal Credit Union credit union products, services, departments static One level. PDF files marked with text.
Traditional Building print magazine "brochures" for advertisers and other vendors static Index entries are company names with annotations. A list of product categories is also available.
American Society of Indexers membership organization services and links of interest to members static Two levels. Some cross references. Use of frames to keep top level visible. Links for terms not underlined.
Java.sun.com computer manufacturer API's, products, technologies static Two levels. Some entries are labeled as to content type (e.g. service, program)
MerseyWorld regional web portal businesses and other organizations in the area static Over 2000 entries. One level.
BBC media company programs, personalities, topics static Index page includes A - Z list of terms as well as A - Z list of subjects. Takes a long time to load completely.
Rudiments of Wisdom Encyclopedia cartoonist cartoons static One level. Includes definitions, cartoon drawings, link to subject list ("themes").
World Flag Database membership organization countries and their flags static One level. Bold face indicates multiple pages for this topic or country.
Compaq Solutions Index computer manufacturer products & services static One level. Each target page includes technical, implementation, and information resources. Also available are indexes by industry and "cross industry" (e.g. customer relationship management")
SAS/STAT User's Guide statistics program user manual segments static Two levels.
About.com general web portal sub-portals static One level. Includes cross references.
World Health Organization non-government organization "encyclopedia" entries that include description, links to related information, subtopics (if any) static Two levels (bold face indicates further breakdown). Multi-lingual. Links to related web sites and topics. Search within topic. Nice design.
Consumer Reports publisher product reports static Three levels. Developed with HTML Indexer, currently maintained manually.
Los Alamos National Laboratory federal research center library newsletter articles static Two levels. Links go to anchors in individual newsletter issues.
U. S Census Bureau government agency "encyclopedia" entries that include description, links to related information, subtopics (if any) static Two levels.
University of Guelph Learning Commons academic consortium service descriptions that may span multiple departments static Two levels. User-oriented topics. Includes explanations, cross references. Links not underlined.


(1) Content objects. The items that the index terms describe. They could be products, book segments, drawings. In the classic back-of-the-book index, the objects are page numbers.

(2) Type. Static indexes are created using separate web pages. Every time a new term is added to the index or a new object is assigned to a term, all the affected web pages have to be changed by hand. Dynamic indexes use a database, where each record represents an index term and related records point to cross references and content objects. As long as you keep the database up to date, the web pages in the index are updated automatically.

Created on May 30, 2002 | Updated on March 11, 2008