Jane began the process of identifying external links and then Shannon took over this task. Jane's search strategy is heavily dependent upon intuition in that she searches using basic terms (not often in strings) and once I have a list of potential hits I search for a reliable source that potentially has a number of external links. Using those links as a base she began the search of the sites listed. As each site is examined a determination of the quality level and usefulness to the topic at hand is made. Thus, selection of a site is determined by various criteria including the design features of the site but primarily for the content loaded into the site in relation to the needs we can assume readers who are in our website will want met.

During one of our group meetings, it was decided that including web links to social issues found in the nursery rhymes would be beneficial in the construction of the Mother Goose Web-site. I was given the job of finding sites that were scholarly and interesting and that helped extend understanding of the topic. Since Jane had already completed some tentative searching regarding some issues using Alta Vista, I decided to use the Excite search engine, because that usually gives me a better list of scholarly sites to choose from.

Kay had provided a social issues page on "The Old Woman in a Shoe," so I began searching for the issues she had identified and then added others on my own as they appeared from the other rhymes. I also discussed the selection of sites with Jane, so that we could agree on some broad social issues for all of the rhymes in the web-page without becoming an overwhelming endeavor for those of us constructing the page, as well as for those who would be using it in the future.

I tried to find sites where the source was respectable, i.e. an organization that was official, ones that I knew, or provided scholarly information through various citations or references to historical data. My quick list of standards which made a site acceptable was:

• sites within the .edu realm
• sites from colleges/universities/governments/other recognized organizations
• sites with scholarly references
• sites with similar information as others but with additional information
• sites with academic papers
• sites with educational value ("how to," "historical," etc.)
• sites found via links from other acceptable sites

One concern with the social issues of rhymes was the controversy of the topic and how to deal with said controversy in a way that would portray the issue truthfully without offending those who seek the information. Birth control and polygamy are two such issues, so sites on the history of the issues presented in different ways, yet with respect to the reader, were key selections.

Also, there were some stumbling blocks along the way regarding social issues. When trying to access information about birth control, six sites on the founder of Planned Parenthood came up, but only two were accessible. The computer I was using had no filters, so any filtering was done by either the search engine or the dial-in being used. One of the four sites had a URL almost identical to a high school web site. this similarity might explain the block for the one site, but does not account for the three others. While one can hope to present an equally balanced choice of links, some unexpected and unmoving obstacles may deter one from searching certain possibilities.

Regarding the search terms, one term noted in "As I was Going to St. Ives" was the idea of many wives. Attempting to search for bigamy brought about three to four possible sites, almost all of which were personal anecdotes from bigamists not considered acceptable for inclusion. However, looking at Mormon sites for ideas of where to find additional web-sites, the idea of searching for polygamy, which is truly the essence of what occurs in the rhyme with the man with so many wives, came to be. Again, sites that where personal anecdotes were their mainstay were avoided while those with background information, history, political information, etc. were noted.

An interesting site of note was one that compared polygamy to same sex marriages as going against the status quo. While one may not have considered examining these two types of life partner commitments, it was a site that presented the issues in a scholarly and comprehensive way, calling attention to a relatively new emergent social issues (same sex marriage) and an old one (polygamy).

Several social issues overlapped, so additional links for the rhymes could be used in multiplicity, thereby reducing the amount of space needed for the site. Issues such as housing and children, and child abuse provide an example of overlap, since various service organizations deal with both of these issues. On the other hand, I was unable to find any acceptable links to some issues originally on the search list.

There is no way that any site can include all links to every issue, since the web is growing and new sites are popping up even as you read this. However, with a lot of patience, persistence, and a good connection, one can in fact find many links to various sites of interest that pertain to his/her web-site.