What is the WWW Virtual Library?

The VL aims to be a superlative and easy to use guide that thoroughly catalogues, in an organised and meaningful way, quality Web resources on particular topics. The WWWVL is made up of numerous volunteer specialists who are united by an interest in cooperation, unbiased sharing and free dissemination of information and dedicated to creating a distributed form of networked knowledge. The easiest way to find out what it is in practice is to use it, via the catalogue entry page at http://vlib.org (link at base of page).
Legally the World Wide Web Virtual Library is a not for profit association (to be precise an association sans but lucratif) established in the Republic and Canton of Geneva, under article 60 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code (Code civil, chapitre II.).
 

Why does the WWW VL need my contribution?

Basically - to expand and to make sure it remains at the cutting edge of the Internet.
Certainly not to pay overheads. The VL has no staff. All the library pages are prepared by volunteers. All the library pages are hosted by the members themselves or a learned body to which they are affiliated.
The size and the growth of the Internet and thus the expanding need to index it has though created a variety of areas where the VL sees the need for 'central services' to help individual volunteers.
We do though use two dedicated servers. One for the central 'Catalog' pages (including this page). The other is to allow the disparate pages of the distributed library to be crawled, and:

• indexed - an excellent robot-indexing was started by Gabriel Fenteany, this project now occupies its own server
• link checked - Again, silly as it may seem, checking the links on even a small database puts a strain on the local server that may cause the process to be aborted -a dedicated server has no such problem. Members can be mailed a list of broken links each week. This automated central process, followed by the dedicated human effort of individual members means that 'broken links' are an increasing rarity with the Virtual Library.

and, in the future:

• spell-checked - silly as it may seem this is no easy task, especially for a multi-lingual environment. Checking HTML code centrally has many advantages. This project is under development.
• purchase of other software and services that VL Council may agree, e.g. a dynamic language translation service.

 

Who pays the WWW VL's overheads?

Each individual 'library' within the VL is the responsibility of its maintainer. In the final analysis it is their intellectual property. They maintain it, they (and/or their employers) donate the resources to allow it to be published.
The only recurring overheads that the VL has are the registration of its domain name (vlib.org). As will be obvious to anyone with a web-site of their own these charges barely exceed 10 Euros per year.
Historically these charges have been met by members of the VL from their own pockets. Now that the VL is formed as an Association they will be met from central funds - the generous donation of one member has ensured that we have cash-in-hand to pay these overheads for many years to come.

 

How can I make a contribution?

The easiest method is by bank transfer.
The association's bank account details are:

Bank:		Migrosbank
SWIFT code:		MIGR CH ZZ 12 A
account Name:		The World Wide Web Virtual Library
account Number:		16 883 503 1 02
IBAN (Swiss Franc account):		CH93 0840 1016 8835 0310 2

If you want to print these out, the essential details for the main account is given on an easy to print page.
The VL does receive a lot of visitors. We do believe in acknowledging contributors (who have indicated that they are willing to be acknowledged!). The VL though has its origins firmly rooted in the university/academic tradition: that is whilst donors are gratefully acknowledged, the VL is not soliciting 'advertising'. That said ... the VL exists in the real world and is not averse to discussing proposals from possible supporters to try and share mutual benefits.