The World Wide Web Virtual Library (WWW VL) was the first index of content on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

and still operates as a directory of

e-text e-text (from "''electronic text''"; sometimes written as etext) is a general term for any document that is read in digital form, and especially a document that is mainly text. For example, a computer-based book of art with minimal text, or a set ...

s and information sources on the web.

Overview

The Virtual Library was started by

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profe ...

creator of

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

and the

itself, in 1991 at CERN in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...

. Unlike commercial index sites, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are experts. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "WWWVL", the "Virtual Library" or just "the VL". The individual indexes, or ''virtual libraries'' live on hundreds of different servers around the world. A set of index pages linking these individual libraries is maintained at ''vlib.org'', in

only a few kilometres from where the VL began life. A mirror of this index is kept at

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. A VL-specific search engine has operated for some years on its own server at ''vlsearch.org''. The central affairs of the Virtual Library are coordinated by an elected Council. A central index (the 'Catalog') is maintained and joint services are provided by the Council on behalf of the association. The World Wide Web Virtual Library participated in the SOPA protests on January 18, 2012.

History

The Virtual Library was first conceived and run by

in 1991, and later expanded, organised and managed for several years by Arthur Secret as the "virtual librarian", before it became a formally established

association Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

with Gerard Manning as its Council's first chairman. The late Bertrand Ibrahim was a key contributor to the pre-association phase of the Virtual Library's development and then served as its Secretary until his untimely death in 2001 at the age of 46. A brief history, with links to archived pages and screenshots, is maintained on the Vlib website. The Virtual Library has grown over the years, so there are now around 300 sub-libraries within the main library. For example, there is the ''WWW-VL History Central Catalogue'', which was launched on 21 September 1993 by Lynn H. Nelson at Kansas University. From April 2004, it was relocated at the

European University Institute The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute and an independent body of the European Union with juridical personality, established by the member states to contribu ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, where a history of the catalogue is also available. The

Virtual Library museums pages The Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp) formed an early leading directory of online museums around the world. History The VLmp online directory resource was founded by Jonathan Bowen in 1994, originally at the Oxford University Computing Labor ...

(VLmp) were added by

Jonathan Bowen Jonathan P. Bowen FBCS FRSA (born 1956) is a British computer scientist and an Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University, where he headed the Centre for Applied Formal Methods. Prof. Bowen is also the Chairman of Museophile Limited ...

to the Virtual Library to cover

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and th ...

s in 1994. The Virtual Library was incorporated as an ''association sans but lucratif'' (

not-for-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

association) in the Republic and

Canton of Geneva The Canton of Geneva, officially the Republic and Canton of Geneva (french: link=no, République et canton de Genève; frp, Rèpublica et canton de Geneva; german: Republik und Kanton Genf; it, Repubblica e Cantone di Ginevra; rm, Republica e ...

, Switzerland. Major decisions, including a set of bylaws, are decided by the membership at large. The main Virtual Library website was redesigned in 2005 and many old or dead individual Virtual Libraries were removed from the index.

References

External links

The WWW Virtual Library website
{{Authority control 1991 establishments in Switzerland Internet properties established in 1991 Web directories Aggregation-based digital libraries Swiss digital libraries CERN Tim Berners-Lee

Overview

History

See also

References

External links