With more than 15,000 visitors each day and a recent mention in the Wall Street Journal, Iowa State’s two entomology department Web sites are efficiently bringing insect information to the masses.

John VanDyk is program coordinator for ISU’s entomology department and is responsible for creating and continuously updating the sites, which recently had been accessed more than 5,000 times by 11 am.

By using the sites, VanDyk said people from anywhere in the world can find information about specific insects.

Even if a person is unsure about what type of insect they are dealing with, the numerous pictures available on the sites can aid people in identifying insects quickly and easily.

Accessing the entomology homepage leads to two sites, the ISU entomology site and the integrated pest management (IPM) site.

The ISU entomology site contains an image gallery that features photos of a multitude of insects and plants which can be found in the state of Iowa.

Helpful hints about pest control also can be found at the entomology site, with current topics covering what to do about flies emerging from drains or finding beetles in your flour.

The IPM site also contains a wealth of insect information, including links to two online departmental newsletters, The Integrated Pest Management Newsletter and the Horticulture and Home Pest News.

The page provides links to specialized, insect-specific pages as well.

Accessible from both pages is the Iowa Insect Information Notes, which features all available insect information notes for the state of Iowa.

VanDyk explained that making the site as user-friendly as possible was a top priority when designing it.

“What drives this Web program is making it as easy as possible for people to get quality information.”

VanDyk began designing the sites early in 1993.

Though he occasionally fills in and teaches classes for instructors in the department when necessary, maintaining and adding to the sites is VanDyk’s main emphasis.

The sites have won numerous online awards and have been mentioned in major publications, including the New York Times and, most recently, the Wall Street Journal’s “Watching the Web” column on July 31.

VanDyk said such publicity is beneficial because it points people to the sites.

“Publicity can be very hard to come by on the Web because so many new sites appear all of the time,” he said.

VanDyk said the goal of the sites is to make the university’s entomology department more effective.

“We’ve got quality information and a great computer system here—it’s only logical to make this information available to people.”

The entomology department’s sites can be accessed at http://www.ent.iastate.edu/ and http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/.