Why
and how this page was made of elements taken to the WWW VL Central
catalogue?
The WWW-VL -the World Wide Web Virtual
Library- is the oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim Berners-Lee,
(*)
the creator of html and of the web itself. Unlike commercial catalogs,
it consists of a loose confederation of volunteers who compile indexes
of key links for the particular fields in which they are expert. Though
it is not the largest or most visible index of the web, WWW-VL is
widely recognised, particularly by teachers and scholars, as offering
the highest-quality web guides to many particular fields.
The central affairs of WWW-VL are
now co-ordinated by an elected council, which took office in January
2000. Major decisions, including a set of bylaws are decided by the
membership at large. With a solid democratic foundation in place,
the WWW-VL expects to greatly increase the breadth of the Project
by recruiting and developing new sites, and to increase the quality
of sites with technical and organisational support for all members.
Copyrights
belonging to the Main WWW-VL
The title "WWW Virtual Library" and
the book-and-globe logo
![[WWW-VL Logo]](http://vlib.iue.it/images/www.gif)
are copyright by Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW Virtual Library. All
rights reserved.
VL
mailing lists
Old WWW-VL Lists Archives
A plain text, continuously updated
archive of both mailing lists was established online by Bernard Ibrahim
at [http://cuisung.unige.ch/vl/ScanListArch.html]
. The archive is protected: use the username vl and the password
Democracy. A hypermail archive of the WWW-VL Announcement
and Discussion lists was maintained at Stanford, but these
lists are no longer current. We now offer all WWW-VL maintainers the
access to the HISTOPS-L list of discussion for the WWW-VL History
Central catalogue. Please inform Lynn
H.Nelson of your wish to participate to the list.
What
is involved in joining the History Virtual Library?
The key quality WWW-VL expects from
its members is that they will maintain indexes that are or aim to
be the definitive reference guide to online resources in a particular
area. Can you create a truly useful guide to your area of expertise
and can you maintain that guide, with input from readers and others?
That is the purpose of WWW-VL History Network and the reason for its
existence. Since it is a group project, all maintainers are expected
to stay in touch with their colleagues via the organization's mailing
lists and participate, at least to some extent, in the overall project
by voting in elections, giving opinions, and linking their own indexes
to other, relevant WWW-VL sites.
After considerable and continued discussion,
the members of WWW-VL have also set some technical requirements on
the content and layout of VL pages. The purpose of these requirements
is not to produce uniformity, but to ensure basic quality standards
and a clear identification of each WWW-VL site. The WWW-VL History
Network adhere to these standards, as well as
having developed additional standards of its own to facilitate the
integration and cross-referencing of individual indexes.
What
are the Benefits of being part of the WWW-VL History ?
Everyone has their own reasons, but
some of the benefits that members have reported include:
1. Expertise - researching
sites for your own index is an excellent way of learning about resources
available through the web and of achieving a knowledge of internet
reference materials (even for a Ph.D. thesis if you are researcher
at the EUI).
2. Professional advancement
- WWW-VL sites are renowned for often being the best online resources
in particular areas. Being the WWW-VL maintainer in a specific area
can enhance one's personal profile and can lead to useful opportunities
and interactions with some of the leading members in a field. Some
WWW-VL sections are maintained by organisations rather than individuals
-- the EUI organization of the European History project is in between
a personal and an institutional project- and, at the EUI, these indexes
and their maintainers are also gaining great positive exposure from
their WWW-VL affiliation. Affiliating with the WWW-VL is also a powerful
stamp of approval and generator of web traffic, as can be seen from
the statistics available through the Shynistat society.
3. Personal satisfaction -
the web is a wild and disorganised place. Creating and maintaining
a high quality guide to specific part of the web can be a very satisfying
accomplishment and a way of helping users who will rely on the WWW-VL
guides and on the different indexes belonging to the WWW-VL European
History. We have all benefitted from the net, and maintaining a VL
site is an excellent way to take advantage of our own expertise to
give back to the net and help others in our field also inside our
own EUI institution. A WWW-VL maintainer empowers many others to accomplish
more and to reach a higher standard of competency. We strive both
to embody ecellence in ourselves and to promote that same excellence
in others.
4. Technical Assistance - The
WWW-VL History Network is a community of like-minded individuals who
provide each other with encouragement, support and technical assistance.
The group has developed a number of facilities to promote and enhance
their common effort. Such services include a search engine [http://vlib.iue.it/history/index.html#vlsearch].
5. Personal Responsibility
- We all benefit from our profession and from the public who support
us and our work. We should not allow ourselves to sink to the level
of being content with simply doing the work for which we are paid
or seeking only those pursuits that promise personal rewards or advancement.
As citizens of a free society, we have the obligation of looking to
the welfare of our fellows. In this new age of digital information,
the work of the WWW-VL is one way of meeting this obligation.
6. Corporate and institutional
behaviour - Becoming member of the History Project is important
to get in touch with other maintainers, discuss and work together
the aims and strategies of the project, integrate solutions and work
and precise some aspects regarding the new internet technologies in
relation with History, European history and EUI's Ph.D. specific topics.
In conclusion, there are a
few technical requirements to maintaining a WWW-VL index, a Virtual
Library. It is far more important is that one share the overall goals
of the other members of the group: to provide clear, current, easy-to-use
and unbiased guides to the most important online sources in a field.
If somebody believes that making life easier for web users is a worthwhile
activity, he should pick his area and join the project. Maintaining
a WWW-VL index is a good way of obtaining recognition in a field,
of keeping abreast with what resources have become available on the
net, and an unique opportunity to being at the forefront of a new
and pwerful form of public service.
The
Content of WWW-VL History Indexes
Each index should contain an unbiased
and relatively comprehensive guide to the most valuable sources in
their historical field. The site should aim to be one of the best
resources in its area. Maintainers should not merely duplicate the
information offered by a colleague in those areas in which relevant
pointers appear to overlap, but should attempt to complement and cross-reference
the efforts of others when possible. One must remember that, although
users may focus on one or another of the constitutuent sites, the
eventual goal of the WWW-VL is to appear as one great whole reflecting
the best of the entire web. Finally, although WWW-VL indexes are largely
collections of links to other sources rather than primary data, a
brief introduction to the field and to the index contents for the
inexperienced visitor is encouraged.
How
to start a new VL for the History Central Catalogue ?
Step 1. Pick a field
A potential maintainer should look
at an area he or she would like to manage, usually something he in
which he or she works or has expertise . He or she should then check
to see if the topic is already listed in the central catalog of the
WWW-VL History Network. Those topics listed in bold face on the central
catalogue already have maintainers, while the others are either WWW-VL
History indexes waiting for a maintainer, or a pointer to another
WWW-VL index that includes, but is not specifically devoted, to History.
If the desired subject is already being handled by a maintainer, it
is often possible that he or she would welcome the opportunity to
develop some sort of collaboration such as the development of a neighboring
field or making a section of the existing index a separate site. One
must remember that it is a principal of WWW-VL that every constituent
site is independent and every maintainer is a full member of the organisation.
At the EUI, at the beginning of each
academic year, an introduction to the History Project is done and
new members are offered the opportunity of developing indexes linked
to their Ph.D. topic, to specific national or chronological European
history interests or to History as a whole. In October each year,
all potential new maintainers will meet the maintainers of the History
Central cataloge, Iñaki López Martín,
The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies or Serge
Noiret, EUI Library. This is the place to discuss all
developments to indexes. If somebody is willing to collaborate but
not able to create HTML pages, an individual HTML course will be made
in order to teach HTML basics.
Step 2. Get in touch
Once one has chosen a history subject,
developed an index, he should register the new history index with
the maintainers of the
History Central catalogue, Serge Noiret. Once a potential maintainer
receives a reply from the WWW-VL central catalofue, he can then inform
Serge Noiret serge.noiret@iue.it
who will then announce the new index in the HISTOPS-L, [histops-l@raven.cc.ku.edu]
the discussion list for WWW-VL History Network maintainers. There
is then a period of two weeks in which other members may offer criticisms
and suggestions.
Step 3: Prototype
A new VL maintainer then starts exploring
the web and putting together a prototype page or set of pages in his
area. He ensures that his prototypes meets the technical requirements
for the WWW-VL History
Network (see "standards"). When he thinks he has got a reasonable
starting point and he's happy with his new index, he should send the
URL of the new site to the History Central Catalog maintainers for
initial review. They will load the new History index on to the EUI
server or link to the new remote URL from the History
Central catalogue.
Step 4: Trial membership
Once accepted as an History maintainer,
the site is added to the catalog on a trial basis for one month during
which other members are free to comment on the site's suitability.
If no major unresolved problems arise, the site automatically becomes
a full member after one month.
Step 5: Keep it going
The web changes quickly. A WWW-VL
maintainer should plan on spending some time every month or so on
checking links from his pages, responding to user feedback and exploring
to find new resources to add to your site. A VL member should also
keep involved with his fellow members via the mailing lists HISTOPS-L,
the mailing list for WWW-VL History Network maintainers, and the other
WWW-VL lists, and participate in the direction of the overall project
where he can. Once a site is created, an hour or two per week is usually
sufficient to keep up management of a small-to-moderate sized site.
The
World-Wide Web Virtual Library's History Central Catalogue:
a short history by Lynn
H.Nelson,
former maintainer at the University of Kansa/Lawrence of the History
Catalogue.
(Other information by Lynn H.Nelson
are available at: [http://www.racine.ra.it/oriani/memoriaericerca/nelson-online.htm]
: Before the Web: the early development of History on-line, published
in Italian as Prima del Web: gli sviluppi della storia on line,
Memoria e Ricerca, n. s., 3 (1999), pp.115-130.)
The World-Wide Web Virtual Library's
History Index began operations in March of 1993 as HNSource, a lynx-based
information server. In September of 1993, at the invitation of Arthur
Secret, who had been assigned by W3.org (CERN in Geneva), the task
of developing a World- Wide Web index, [HTTP functions were added
to HNSource, which then assumed the additional identity of The History
Index, the first of the World-Wide Web Virtual Library's index sites.
For several years, this site was maintained as a single megapage,
with categories being thrown off as separate files only when it was
necessary to keep the Index from becoming larger than 275 Kb. As the
number of History-related sites increased, it became more difficult
to maintain satisfactory coverage, to stay abreast of changed addresses
and non-operative URLs, and to keep an optimum balance between broad
coverage and an effective level of selectivity. The establishment
of an integrated and international network of indexes appeared to
be the best solution to these problems, and several maintainers of
major gateways outside of WWW-VL joined to lay the foundations for
such a network. After extensive discussion within this group, a set
of common standards [http://vlib.iue.it/history/about/standards.html]
(**) for network sites was established, and the
group began bringing their individual sites into conformity with those
standards.
WWW-VL
History Organization
The central catalogue of the History
Network is maintained by Serge
Noiret and Inaki Lopez Martin
at the European University Institute's
Library, Florence, Italy. The central catalogue provides direct
links to network sites through its index and maintains a large number
of files of pointers for countries, periods, and subject for which
there is not yet a member site. Network sites will increasingly supplement
their own indexes by linking to appropriate sections of other member
sites.
The WWW-VL History Network and its
member sites individually, are members of WWW-VL, and each maintainer
of a network site is a virtual librarian of WWW-VL. All maintainers
are therefore equal, and decisions are reached through discussion
and mutual agreement, although this does not preclude the possibility
that the members may choose a more formal organization in the future.
The WWW-VL History Network intends to decide, on the basis of what
was already said above, what sites and maintainers it will integrate
and to endorse the acceptance by WWW-VL of those sites and individuals
it invites to participate. Beyond that, the members of the Network
hope to govern their own activities, but to adhere to the standards
of WWW-VL and to participate in that organization as actively and
as fully as possible.
Invitation
to Volunteer Maintainers
In order to provide users with a useful
facility, the History Network will have to grow, and it can do so
only if new volunteers will join us, either bringing their pre-existing
site, or creating a new one, to be integrated into the Network. The
updated list of History Maintainers is available at [http://vlib.iue.it/history/about/maintainers.html]
Fundings ?
Volunteers must realize, however,
that the History Network is, and will remain, unfunded.
"Quality" contents of the WWW-VL
History Project
Although the Network will be serving
the general public, maintainers should attempt to establish standards
of coverage and selectivity that will make their sites effective tools
for practicing historians wishing to work on-line. In order to accomplish
this, each maintainer should be familiar with the needs of scholars
and instructors in the area for which he or she is providing the necessary
pointers. It should also be noted in this regard that the work of
the members of the History Network will be justified only in
the numbers and quality of users accessing it, and that only uniform
excellence will gain the Network the reputation necessary to draw
such a body of users.
To develop this idea of monitoring
the contents of the web, the Italian History Index decided to create
a Board
of Editors in order to offer a logo:
![[Best Italian History Site recommended by the VL Italian History Index]](../images/www-vltop-it.gif)
-- like the one offered by the Spanish
History Index --
to the Best Italian
History sites located in Italy.
To be eligible for the list of scientifically-evaluated
sites, all web-sites should be aware of the following criteria's and
also be accessible totally and freely to a world-wide public without
any kind of restriction:
- A website must originate out of a sound research
or editorial project
- Its focus must be on intensity, novelty and reliability
of content, not primarily on technology.
- The use of IT devices must be clearly validated
not per se, but on the basis of the creativity of the web site
communication project.
- Its authors must be clearly indicated and credits
acknowledged.
- Its objectives must be stated and its intended
audience identified.
- Its content must be scientific-review proof
- It must offer free access to its materials and
must neither have any commercial purpose nor rely heavily on advertising,
even if a moderate amount of pertinent advertising for self-funding
purpose may be admitted
- If publishing is its main objective, it must
be stated whether it is peer reviewed and who the members are
of its scientific board; if it publishes editions of classical
texts, sound philological criteria must be recognizable (original
language, completeness, paratextual apparatus)
- The site must be regularly updated and developed
according to its proclaimed agenda
- Eligibility for the Best of the VL Italian History
Index requires that a site is high quality in its entirety and
not only in one single section.
How
to Recommend a Site for the History WWW-VL Central catalogue ?
If you wish to recommend a site, please
note that recommended sites, following the History Network criteria's,
[http://vlib.iue.it/history/about/standards.html]
should be:
- Relevant to the study of History and, more precisely,
to European History
- Accessible without charge to the general public
- Present original material or provide a useful
facility
- Accurate, orderly, and competently presented
following common templates.
Recommended sites should not be:
- Restricted to members or to those paying a fee
- Without original content
- Primarily commercial in presentation
- Characterized by poor grammar or spelling
- Presentations of biased or distorted views
- Advocating or supporting improper or illegal
actions
--------------------------------------------------------------------
(**) WWW-VL
History: Common Standards and Guidelines
The following general standards for
WWW-VL History Network sites have been reached by discussion among
present site maintainers and may be modified by further discussion.
The object of these standards is to establish some similarity among
the various component sites, allow for greater integration over time,
and to make the sites accessible to the widest number of users possible.
No one is expected to abandon their present site to meet these recommended
elements but, if his or her present site departs significantly from
them, to set up a parallel series of compliant pages.
A. General Criteria for Pages
- Lynx Compliant
- Maximum size of 50 Kb
- Non-frames, minimal graphics with a full description
placed in the ALT=""> portion of the IMG SRC format
- White background and black text is preferred,
but variations within 256 colors are acceptable
- Obtrusive advertisements, especially drop-downs
and animations, should be avoided.
B. Elements of Main Pages
- Logos linked to the source for WWW-VL Main Catalogue,
WWW-VL: History Main Catalogue, the logo for the site itself,
followed by the text: WWW-VL: History Subject name of site.
- Text links to WWW-VL Main Catalogue and WWW-VL
Main Catalogue.
- WWW-VL search script and WWW-VL search script
for the History section
- Pointers to Nature and Purpose of the WWW-VL
History Network, a form for reporting new or broken links to the
Webmaster, and date of last link-check and update
- Index
C. Organization
1. Indexes should follow the pattern
of
- REFERENCE
- CHRONOLOGICAL
- GEOGRAPHICAL
- TOPICAL
- OTHER with appropriate subcategories.
2. Sub-categories should be developed
in cooperation with other maintainers in so far as it practical.
D. Index Pages
- Each page, including the Main Page, should carry
the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
(DCMI) elements, with multilingual description and keywords.
- When keywords for individual links are appropriate,
they also should be multilingual.
Last Updated, the
8 December, 2005
, Serge Noiret, [
