Since its inception in 2006, Intute has rapidly become a “must use” service for the academic community. The long-standing problem of students turning to Google or Wikipedia as a first port of call for online information is one that is not easy to surmount, but the service, led by the University of Manchester, has emerged as a highly respected and valued academic alternative.

At its heart, Intute provides a curated database of 120,000 high-quality websites, each carefully chosen and evaluated by a network of subject specialists from prominent universities across the UK. The contributors lend academic credibility to the selection process, removing any possibility of the kind of false drops and off-topic material than can blight a search of any of the more popular search engines.

Intute grew out of the former Resource Discovery Network (RDN), a collection of eight different services, each of which focused on a specific subject area – these gradually evolved into four subject groups at the time of Intute’s launch in the middle of 2006, and have now been subsumed into one streamlined service.

Reaction to the site’s relaunch has been extremely favourable, with the site featuring as a “must visit” resource in the BBC’s Click programme in August 2009. Reaction from the academic community has been overwhelmingly positive too, with around 11 million page views and 3 million searches reported in October alone, a reflection of Intute’s growing maturity and visibility.

Delving deeper, Intute is much more than a search engine. Alongside the usual array of blogs and news services, the site offers a wealth of additional features. Tools are available to embed various aspects of Intute within your website or service, and, looking at the scientific subjects in particular, the World Guide stands out as a terrific resource – featuring tens of thousands of pages of information, satellite images, spatial tools and interactive maps.

The site is an intuitive and essential resource for researchers and students of all stripes.