2. American Studies Crossroads Project
A project of the American Studies Association, and sponsored and hosted by Georgetown University, this metasite is perhaps one of the best representations, in cyberspace form, of the tremendous diversity and dynamism of the field of American Studies. Highly accessible and easy to navigate, this site consists of four basic sub-categories: Communities, Curriculum, Technology and Learning, and Reference and Research. Each of these provides a wealth of links to related sites and search engines, ranging from information on professional organizations and scholarly journals, to collections of syllabi and dissertations, to interactive message boards. While this site would be useful for any American Studies-related topic, and should probably be "required visiting" as part of any American Studies research project, it is particularly useful in researching a highly integrative topic such as sense of place. The many syllabi and dissertation abstracts provide examples of scholarship that has integrated such concepts and approaches as sense of place, cultural landscape studies, ethnography, place-based identity (on a variety of levels), and ecological landscapes/ecologicallly-based sense of place. The syllabi are also very useful in providing bibliographic citations for research in these areas. And a newly-designed offshoot of this website, The New American Studies Web (see annotation below), provides links to a variety of web resources. Overall, the American Studies Crossroads Project contributes to the richness of scholarship in place-oriented studies, and in a multitude of other sub-fields, by promoting the sharing of resources, teaching methods, and scholarly work.

3. The New American Studies Web
A project of the American Studies Crossroads Project, this metasite provides a bibliography of web-based resources for a wide variety of sub-fields within American Studies. The bibliography is divided into twenty-eight "first-level categories" which range in subject matter from community studies to science and technology to visual culture. Additionally, each of these categories is further subdivided into second- or third-level categories, leading eventually to links to metasites and/or websites for institutions and organizations specializing in these fields. This website is especially useful in helping to locate online resources that are often not available elsewhere, such as introductory information pages on scholarly topics, online museums or displays, and organization- or institution-based sites. It is also useful in pinpointing other metasites. The New American Studies Web contributes specifically to research in the area of sense of place by providing a wide range of place-related categories under which to search, such as community studies, environmental studies and nature, nationalism and postnationalism, and regional studies. And much like its parent website, the New American Studies Web contributes to an overall increase in the availability of American Studies resource information, and to the dynamism of sharing-based (online) research methods in American Studies.

4. Research on Place and Space
Designed and maintained by Bruce Janz, a professor of philosophy at the University of Central Florida, this metasite is a rather massive collection of links and resources for all kinds of topics related to place (primarily) and also to space. The purpose of this site, in addition to providing resources on place, is to complicate the notion of place, and in the words of Professor Janz, to "cross-pollinate the notion of place across disciplines." (website mainpage) The main page of this site contains a table of contents, which provides basic information on the website and its purposes, plus a category listing general place-based resources and links, followed by an amazingly diverse set of sub-categories relating to any and all facets of the concept of place. A sampling of these categories includes "Applied Sciences, Technology;" "Geography, Environment, Environmental Ethics, Ecology;" "Genius Loci, Spirit of Place;" and "Globalization, Glocalization." Within each of these categories are listings of relevant websites, home pages of scholars in these areas, journals, courses and teaching resources, and a general bibliography listing books and articles. Though some of the links to do not function properly, this website is otherwise a phenomenal resource--an absolute goldmine of information related to place-based topics, and an attempt to demonstrate the diversity and interdisciplinarity of place-based studies. It is a wonderful contribution to place-based scholarship in that it brings together in one location, and highlights connections between, such a wide variety of diverse and far-flung information.

5. Architect.org
Architect.org is the website of the Architecture Research Institute, a New York-based educational organization that promotes liveable and sustainable cities by means of research in design and the built environment. In addition to information about current projects and events, as well as about the Architecture Research Institute's journal, .architect, Architect.org provides an extensive set of links and bibliography pages. The links are useful in providing connections to other organizations and institutes working in the areas of design and the built environment, while the bibliographies are most useful in a scholarly sense. The bibliography page is divided into four sub-categories: Design, Technology, Practice, and Interdisciplinary. Headings within these categories which are of particular relevance for place-based studies include American Landscapes, Cultural Criticism, and Human Cultural Geography. Each of these headings provides a list of schoarly books and articles on these topics. While not designed as a scholarly site or resource, Architect.org contributes to place-based scholarship by providing a website where scholars can both access scholarly information and complicate their notion of place by seeing it embedded within a particular social project.

6. ASLE Online: The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment
Associated with the Modern Language Association (and the University of Minnesota?) the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, and its online portal ASLE Online, devotes itself to exploring "literature and other cultural representations that consider human relationships with the natural world." (main page) ASLE also works to strengthen relationships between various artists, scholars, and professionals who are concerned with human-environment relationships. The website provides access to a considerable number of resources in the areas of human-environment relationships and literature and the environment. These include an extensive set of bibliographies, with headings on such areas as globalization, regional and place-based writing, and environmental studies, all of which are particularly useful for place-based studies, and in particular for understanding sense of place within an ecological framework. This site also provides links to online articles and books, and contains a collection of syllabi and teaching resources (plus links to other syllabi sites) in the area of literature/representation and the environment. And finally, a related resources page provides links to metasites, isntitutions, organizations, and directories in the areas of environmental literature and environmental studies. Though not directly concerned with place, ASLE Online contributes to place-based scholarship, particularly place-based scholarship within an ecological framework, by highlighting interconnections between place and environmental values in the construction of identity, and by providing acceess to a wealth of resources in the larger area of "nature-culture"relations.

7. Debating Globalization
Sponsored by the Lemieux Library at the University of Seattle, the Debating Globalization website is devoted to exploring and complicating the concept of globalization. Globalization is explored both as a general concept and in terms of perspectives (often disciplinary) through which debates on globalization are framed, such as "politics and law" or "technology." Within each of these categories a considerable compilation of relevant resources is provided, including books, videos, journal articles, and web resources (generally organizational or institutional websites). The category of "Society and Culture" is particularly useful for place-based scholarship, providing links to and citations for resources which may help to complicate notions of sense of place as existing solely at the local level, or in a mode of geographical immobility. Several of the links under the sub-heading of "Art, Artifacts, and Popular Culture" also speak of the study of sense of place in relation to cultural identity. This site is not truly a metasite, and is probably only of limited use in relation to place-based scholarship, but it nevertheless opens the door (if very subtlely) to both a theoretical and geographical expansion of the concept of sense of place.

8. Harvard University Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies
While this site is not in reality a metasite, and provides very few links, I include it here because it is informative nonetheless in providing information on cultural landscapes from a distinctly practice-based, or use-based perspective. It also provides information about connections between cultural landscapes, human beings, and ecological systems. For all of these reasons, this site contributes to scholarship on place-based studies, and particularly to place-based scholarship that is seeking to ground itself in material and environmental realities.