The Academic Index was created and is maintained by Dr. Michael Bell , former chair, Texas Association of School Librarians.

The Academic Index is a true meta-search tool that includes results from mega-information databases that index only research-quality reference and information sources selected by professional librarians, educators, and educational and library consortia.

At the present time the Academic Index provides access to approximately 157,000 quality information web pages. Some included sites are :

Virtual Learning Resources Center - 9,500 pages recommended by professional librarians and teachers

Resource Discovery Network - a collaboration of over seventy British educational and research organisations, including the Natural History Museum and the British Library providing access to approximately 70,000 resources.

Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) - Sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Education, GEM is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to (currently) 39,723 educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites.

MagBot - a carefully selected database of freely accessible online periodical articles corresponding to important topics of interest to high school and community college students and teachers

Internet Scout Project -Sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, an eclectic staff of academics and professionals have selected 16,969 research-quality Internet information sites.

MeL Internet -A division of the Michigan E-Library, MeL Internet makes available 20,000+ librarian recommended Internet sites.

As a meta-search engine, the Academic Index integrates into its search results only the first 1-2 pages returned from each site it searches. Because most sites rank search results as to relevance, this ensures that only the best (most relevant) information is returned to users. Sometimes, however, users may want to search Internet information sites in depth. Use the Academic Index Search Tools page for this purpose.

I hope you enjoy using Academic Index.

Sincerely,
Dr. Michael Bell