The World-Wide Web Virtual Library [Alphabetical || Category Subtree || WWW VL database|| WWW VL Global Search]

About the Asian Studies WWW VL Project: Summary

• Title: Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library
• URL: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html
• Description: A global collaborative project which provides access in bibliographic and in hypertext terms to networked scholarly documents, resources and information systems concerned with or relevant to Asian Studies.
• Mission: Expert information services, by the experts, for the experts
• Context: The AS WWW VL is part of the World-Wide Web Virtual Library Project (initiated at CERN, now affiliated with the W3 Consortium)
• Commencement date: 24 March 1994
• Publisher: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
  in conjunction with
  • 34 other organizations (on 03 Jul 2002)
  • 40 other organizations (on 28 Oct 2000)
• Policy: New individuals / sites / institutions are always welcome to join this archipelago of networked knowledge
• Number of active mirror sites: 2 (on 03 Jul 2002)
  • Association for Asian Studies (AAS), USA
  • International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands [not regularly updated]
  • Stanford University, USA [no longer operating]
  • Pennsylvania State University, USA [no longer operating]
  • University of East Anglia, UK [no longer operating]
  • University of Geneva, Switzerland [no longer operating]
• Number of information modules:
  • 78 (on 03 Jul 2002)
  • 80 (on 28 Oct 2000)
• External hypertext links established to the top page:
  • 5,627 (on 01 Jun 2002)
  • 4,113 (on 01 Mar 2002)
  • 5,561 (on 01 Dec 2001)
  • 5,383 (on 01 Mar 2001)
  • 1,806 (on 28 Jul 1999)
  • 3,552 (on 10 May 1999)
  • 3,127 (on 10 Aug 1998)
• Months of online operation: 100 (on 01 Jul 2002)
• History of the Project: see Asian Studies WWW VL Project Timeline
• Statistics for the top page at the COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU site (http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html):
  • 5,627 external links to the site (01 Jun 2002)
  • 4,113 external links to the site (01 Mar 2002)
  • 5,561 external links to the site (01 Dec 2001)
  • 5,383 external links to the site (01 Mar 2001)

  • Rank no 2 at www.google.com out of 1,480,000 pages world-wide (01 Jun 2002)
  • Rank no 1 at www.google.com out of 1,478,000 pages world-wide (01 Mar 2002)

  • 18,940 page views per month (on 28 Jul 1999)
  • 30,111 page views per month (on 10 May 1999)
  • 17,429 page views per month (on 10 Aug 1998)
• Editor-in-Chief: Dr T.Matthew Ciolek (tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au) [since 24 March 1994]
• Section Editors:
  • 45 (on 20 Aug 2002)
  • 44 (on 03 Jul 2002)
  • 50 (on 28 Oct 2001)

• Collaborating countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Thailand, and United States.
• For further information see:

  • Ciolek. T.M. 1995. Ensuring High Quality in Multifaceted Information Services. Proceedings of the AUUG'95 and Asia-Pacific WWW'95 Conference, September 17-21 1995, Sydney, Australia . pp. 68-75.
    http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVLPages/QltyPages/EnsuringQlty.html
    [A description of the August 1995 editorial procedures involved in the production of one of the elements of the AS WWW VL, the Asian Studies WWW Monitor electronic journal
    http://coombs.anu.edu.au/asia-www-monitor.html]

  • Ciolek. T.M. 1996. Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library: A Large Scale Scholarly Guide to Internet Resources. The New Review of Information Networking, Taylor Graham Publishing, London, UK. pp. 207-218.
    http://www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/asvl-1996.html
    [A description and discusssion of the AS WWW VL project, after some 2.3 years of operations, in July 1996]

  • Ciolek. T.M. 1997. Taming the Internet Wilderness: Collaborative Strategies for the Southeast Asian Scholarly Networks. To appear in: Colloquium on Academic Library Information Resources for Southeast Asian Scholarship, 3-5 November 1997, Volume 2. University of Malaya Library, Kuala Lumpur.
    http://www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/SEAsianCyberspace-97.html
    [On the collaborative philosophy of the WWW Virtual Libraries in general]

About the Asian Studies WWW VL Project: Additional Details

Together this team manages many tens of specialist information modules organized by topic, country and region. They offer access to over 10,000 Internet resources from around the globe, including archives, library catalogs, documents, bibliographies, electronic-journal registers and mailing lists.

To help readers track new developments, country-specific virtual libraries are linked to the daily issues of the Asian Studies WWW Monitor online journal.

Our collaborative philosophy enables individual editors to focus on his or her area of specialization, to build on colleagues' expertise, and to avoid redundant web monitoring and web cataloging. Unlike general purpose Web searching tools such as Google, Yahoo, or Altavista, the ASWWWVL allows scholars to locate and access research-orientated online publications and resources.

The ASWWWVL is a decentralized, distributed online resource catalog which consciously avoids hyperbole and "infotainment", aiming instead at the narrow and selected audience of academics, librarians, journalists, and graduate students. This award winning coalition of self-governing web sites subscribes to seven golden rules of management of a WWW Virtual Library.

"Virtual librarians" for additional specialist subject registers or catalogues are warmly invited to join our international team.

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