Subject gateways: fulfilling the DESIRE for knowledge

One of the greatest challenges for users in the electronic age is to learn how the Internet can be used to meet their information needs and to conceptualise how the different Internet search and retrieval tools can help them to do this. This article aims to describe how subject gateways can help different user communities to make effective use of the Internet and to clarify some of the key differences between subject gateways and search engines. The paper will reference work that has been done by the European Union's DESIRE Project [DESIRE Project Home Page, http://www.desire.org/] on developing guidelines and tools for the development of new subject gateways. It will highlight some of the gateways already freely available for use and will give some insight into the far-reaching developments that users can expect to see in the coming months and years. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.