October 22, 1998 | Read Time: 1 minute
HandsNet has created a service that scans the Internet each weekday for documents of interest to social-service organizations and delivers the information directly to subscribers by e-mail.
People who sign up for WebClipper, as the service is known, choose which topics related to social services they wish to receive information about. Within the “Welfare Reform” section, for example, subscribers can select “devolution” or “food stamps and welfare reform.”
HandsNet then uses a search engine to scan about 500 Web sites, such as that run by the Center for Law and Social Policy, for new information about those topics. A summary of the document is then delivered to the subscriber by e-mail. HandsNet now has about 300,000 documents available on line and is adding about 2,300 new ones each weekday.
“Even with the advent of tremendous Web tools for searching there’s still a crying need to help non-profits find quality information,” says Michael Saunders, HandsNet’s executive officer.
HandsNet is still working out the kinks in the service. A search earlier this month for articles dealing with “devolution” and “welfare reform” produced a paper entitled “Snakeheads in the Garden of Eden: Immigrants, Smuggling, and Threats to Social Order in Japan.”
WebClipper is available free for a 30-day trial subscription. After that, non-profit groups will be charged $99 annually.
To get there: Go to http://www.webclipper.org.
