Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

INTRODUCTION
The World Wide Web offers children’s folklore researchers an exciting range of 
source material. Before the 1990s, people who wanted to learn about children’s 
folklore had to take books out of libraries and gather material from archives. Al-
though library and archival sources still offer excellent source material, Web sites 
provide some of the most up-to-date examples. Some Web sites encourage sub-
missions of children’s folklore texts by visitors, so the range of available data is 
always changing.
Although the Internet facilitates rapid research, it is important to remember 
that not all Web sites are equally trustworthy. Sites with the suffix “.com” belong 
to businesses; sites with the suffix “.org” belong to organizations, and sites with the 
suffix “.edu” belong to educational institutions. Most “.edu” sites provide reliable 
information; many organizational and commercial sites also offer fine material. 
Nonetheless, it is important to consider each Web site’s validity.
Because Web sites come and go, one cannot be sure that all the sites on a list 
of resources will continue to be available. To maximize availability, I have listed 
well-established Web sites. If any of these sites seem difficult to find, I recom-
mend trying a keyword search.
This section is designed to help researchers find accurate children’s folklore 
texts and contextual information. Some of the best material comes from folklore 
archives; certain archives can be accessed online, but others require phone calls 
or visits. As more archives develop digital resources, it will become easier to do 
children’s folklore research online.

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158 Web 
Resources
SEARCH ENGINES
Reliable search engines greatly increase the efficiency of Web research. One 
of the best search engines is Google (http://www.google.com). Google Scholar 
(http://www.scholargoogle.com) offers an extensive database of full-text articles. 
Other effective search engines include:
All the Web (http://www.alltheweb.com)
Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.com)
DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org)
Excite (http://www.excite.com)
Webcrawler (http://www.webcrawler.com)
Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com)