.edu as an underground?

Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com) has an article they are running called Discover the .EDU Underground

Little appreciated outside the world of academia, there are literally thousands of .edu sites bursting with incredibly useful and interesting information and resources.

Interesting list of finds about Art, Science, Space, Humanities, Photography, History and everything. Interesting that learning about the web projects in higher education is such a “discovery”. There is a story here about our outreach efforts.

We do a lot of great work in a lot of areas across the whole spectrum of human experience. Why is it that our work seems like hidden gems to the world at large?

Most of these sites won’t pop up to the surface of the average search engine quest, and so they wait, neglected and underused…until now. Keep reading for a quick tour through the mysterious underground world of .edu.

We do not do things for a profit so maybe there are fewer links coming in from stores, referrers and reviewers. Lifehacker gives people a hint for searching for .edu sites specifically.

… you can mine the web for much, MUCH more simply by using this search string in Google: site:.edu “insert subject here”. Just tweak that as needed and you’ll be able to find a ton more than I could ever have time to write here. What’s your favorite .edu resource? Let’s hear in the comments.

Maybe this kind of exposure will drive more people towards HE websites and will raise awareness of what our institutions do for everyone.