Back in the day when women were women, men were men, and real reference librarians knew their National Union Catalog from their Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, toting Sheehy’s Guide to Reference Books under their arm as if it were the King James Bible, I alternately dreaded and embraced interrogatory sentences that began, “How do I make...?”
How do I make an erupting volcano? How do I make a crystal radio? How do I make a mah-jongg table for my bubbe’s 75th birthday? My ace in the hole back then was the Index to How To Do It Information, a hit-and-miss, subject-driven orthodox print index in the H.W. Wilson vein providing access to do-it-yourself articles in hundreds of general interest periodicals. That, in the iconic phraseology of S.E. Hinton, was then, this is eHow. Er...now.
WWW.EHOW.comis my electronic wingman for every genre of weekend warrior do-it-yourselfer, elementary school science fair project seeker, gearhead enthusiast, and inveterate hobbyist drawn to the library for assistance in fulfilling the perpetual need to make, fix, improve, or just do something. Bless ’em all. Combining the practical nuts-and-bolts knowledge of experienced practitioners with advice and counseling provided by acknowledged experts, eHow offers information, comprehensive step-by-step instructions, and research on pretty much everything for the 80 million monthly visitors to the site.
The homepage is a colorful and utilitarian combination of Flash photo banners and a traditional horizontal menu ribbon featuring category buttons for Family, Food, Health, Home, Money, Style, and More (a portal to 30 more categories). Along the left-hand column is a vertical Browse How Tos menu of alphabetically arranged subjects including Arts & Entertainment, Pets & Animals, and Weddings & Parties. Additional prominently displayed homepage features are an eHow Top 10, Featured How Tos, an eHow of the Day, and a link to the 150,000-item video library. And, of course, the obligatory free-text search window is the searcher’s first option atop the crest of the menu ribbon.Using the aforementioned erupting volcano as a test in the generic search pane yields over 15 pages of references, citations, videos, and instructions for constructing all flavors (yes, boys and girls, there is actually an edible erupting volcano—have lots of food coloring on hand, Mom) of spewing volcanoes, from utterly fake to a realistic, faux-lava-producing model.
BOTTOM LINEBased on my empirical research of the elusive quest for the definitive erupting volcano, I can unequivocally state that eHow really blows. And that’s a good thing—I wouldn’t go anywhere else first for my patrons’ primary instructional needs.—Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
Welcome the LJ Archives.
This archive site is the home to all LJ articles published prior to January 2012;
