ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ N ovem ber 1998 / 761 Web rings An alternative to search engines by Carol Casey T he Web ring has quietly grow n into an alternative m ethod of cruising the Internet. Usually rep resen ted by a triptych o f panels an d accom panied by p ro u d proclam ations of m em bership, Web rings can b e loudly ob tru ­ sive o r gentle anom alies in the overall design o f a Web site. As a w ay o f collecting Web sites o n similar topics into separate little un i­ verses on the Internet, the Web ring is an ingenious alternative to compiling a list of links. A ring o f W eb sites G enerally speaking, a W eb ring is a gro u p o f W eb sites that are linked together in a co n ­ tinuous linear loop. An early exam ple o f this type o f ring is EUROPa, the Expanding Uni­ directional Ring O f PAges, created by Denis H ow e at London’s Imperial College in D e­ cem ber 1994.1 T he ring is com prised o f sites chained to ­ gether, an d the only w ay to m ove through the ring is in a single direction. W hen a n ew site is added, th e o w n er o f th e previous site has to a d d a link to it. It is also u p to the W eb site o w n er to k ee p track o f the next W eb site in the chain, in case it disappears and causes a break in the ring. As a free-for-all string of unrelated W eb sites, EUROPa is a novelty w ithout m uch practical use. Topic-specific W eb rings Most o f the W eb rings fo u n d o n the Internet have b e e n created th ro u g h th e reso u rces found at W ebring (h ttp ://w eb rin g .co m ). Fol­ low ing th e EUROPa concept, high school senior, Sage Weil, and Troy Griffin developed a W eb ring in Ju n e 1995. Tw o m onths later, Weil not only solved EUROPa’s linear p ro b ­ lem, bu t eliminated the n ee d for m aintenance by the W eb site ow ners. With EUROPa, the W eb site ow ners have to “constantly edit their p ag e to p o in t to a n ew site w h e n it w as a d d e d ”2 to a ring. W eil’s W eb ring has a cen­ tralized CGI script that runs the ring an d di­ rects users to the oth er sites. This m eans that a “central W eb server maintains a list o f sites tied to a specific them e or interest.”3 The only editing a W eb site o w n er has to d o is ad d a link to th e CGI script, plus insert th e W eb ring graphic a n d text elem ents into his o r h er site. Best o f all, Webring, the organization fo u n d ed by Weil, offers the HTML co d e and server space free to an yone w ho w ants to create a topic-driven W eb ring. W hy a W eb ring? At first glance, th e co n cep t o f a W eb ring is a bit bew ildering to those o f us w ho question the intentional im position o f a linear route through the nonlinear Internet. Closer inspec­ tion reveals that Webring’s version o f the Web ring is m ore sophisticated than a continual loop o f W eb pages. Weil said, “P eople can travel a ring in either direction, either jum p­ ing to (or skipping) the next site o r previous site, list the next five sites in a ring, jum p to a random site in the ring, o r simply get a list o f all pages in th e lo o p .”4 In o th er w ords, it is a m ore dynam ic m eans o f pointing a user to related W eb sites than the usual lists o f fa­ vorite links. A b o u t th e a u th o r Carol Casey is head o f the catalog departm ent a t the University o f Southwestern Louisiana, e-mail: casey@mindancer.com http://webring.com mailto:casey@mindancer.com 762 / C&RL News ■ N ovem ber 1998 As a w ay of collecting Web sites on sim ilar topics into separate little universes on the Internet, the Web ring is an ingenious alternative to compiling a list of links. Web rings and libraries As “a novel, decentralized, an d soothingly non-hierarchical w ay to experience an d o r­ ganize W eb co n ten t,”5 the W eb ring is w orth investigating. The goal o f W ebring is to be an alternative to the major search engines by offering W eb rings as a starting point for lo­ cating information. This is w hy the m ain cri­ terion for developing a W eb ring is that it m ust be devoted to a single topic. Also, unlike the major search engines, W eb rings are created an d m aintained by anyone willing to take on th e task. All the rings that u se W ebring’s HTML code an d server space are listed by subject at RingWorld (h ttp :// w ebring.com /ringw orld/), accessed through W ebring’s hom epage. As of April 1998, there w ere 47,370 rings at Webring. For greater flex­ ibility, the sites o n the rings are also search­ able by keyword. To en h an ce access to Internet resources, a lib ra ry ca n p ro v id e a g e n e r a l lin k to W ebring’s list o f rings. If an Internet p ath ­ finder is devoted to a specific topic, a link can be m ade to individual rings related to that topic. This gives the user the o p p o rtu ­ nity to explore single-topic W eb sites w ith­ o u t h av in g to d ea l w ith d e a d lin k s an d nonrelevant W eb sites, w hich are sw ept into a keyw ord search o n the major search e n ­ gines. It also is a g o o d idea to check to see if a W eb ring has b ee n dev elo p ed for a subject before undertaking th e task o f com piling a list o f links. W hy duplicate the effort if the job has already b e e n done? For those librarians w ho think they w ould like to create a W eb ring, several things n eed to b e k ep t in mind. Creating a W eb ring is not like compiling a list o f links. The ow ners o f the W eb sites have to agree to join the ring an d b e willing to ad d the graphics, text, and links for the W eb ring to their site. If the W eb site is already a part of o n e o r m ore rings, the ow n er may n o t w an t to join an ­ other one. If nothing else, all the extra graphic an d text elem ents no t only ad d clutter to the overall design o f a site b u t increase precious d o w n lo ad time. So even if a W eb ring d o e s n ’t quite cover o r ap p ro ach a subject the w ay you w ould like, it is best to link to the existing ring and m aybe su p p lem en t it w ith a list o f additional W eb sites. A nother point to consider is that devel­ oping an d maintaining a W eb ring can be tim e-consum ing. It takes tim e to track dow n potential sites, not to m ention contacting Web site ow ners and, in som e cases, convincing them to join the ring. As the ring grows, the opposite problem o f getting to o m any appli­ cations to join the ring may occur. To deal w ith this, a policy that controls the content and quality o f the ring m ust b e developed an d m ore tim e sp en t evaluating these new W eb sites. The n u m b er o f W eb sites in Web rings currently o n the Internet range from a handful to several h undred, so the W eb ring o w n er has to decide h ow m any are enough for the ring to w ork effectively. O n the technical side, the ringmaster, as the o w n er o f a W eb ring is called, m ust have a g ood understanding of HTML an d experi­ ence in creating W eb pages. Each W eb ring has a ho m ep ag e that is created an d m ain­ tained by the W eb ring ow ner. The design o f the graphic an d text ele­ m ents that represent the W eb ring on the in­ dividual sites is also the responsibility o f the ringmaster. Because o f this, the ringmaster m ust enjoy w orking w ith the technical as­ pects o f the Internet and derive som e kind of satisfaction from m aintaining the W eb ring o r else it will quickly b ecom e a chore. Given all this, maintaining a W eb ring can help sh a p e th e quality o f the Internet re­ sources offered by a library. P erhaps som e­ day the title “ringm aster” will have the same w eig h t to it as “W eb m aster.” As Clinton W ilder asks: “H ow will ‘ringm aster’ look on your resume?”6 Only tim e will tell. Full circle Although Webring is branching o u t into more com mercial uses of the W eb ring, it remains dedicated to the original intent of the organi­ zation. Charley Lanusse, president of Starseed, current ow ners o f W ebring, assures us that they are “committed to o p en information.… W e’re co n cern ed about getting as m uch in­ C&RL N ew s ■ N ovem b er 7998 / 763 formation indexed as possible.”7 A nyone w ho w ants to create a topic-specific W eb ring is w elcom e to use the W ebring resources free- of-charge. As an information resource, Web rings are a good starting point on the Internet. W hether just adding links to existing W eb rings o r tak­ ing on the responsibility o f developing and maintaining one, libraries are a natural place to exploit the potential o f the W eb ring as a minefield o f topic-specific information. Notes 1. H ow e, Denis. E xpanding Unidirectional Ring O f Pages, (April 17,1998). 5. O ’Connell, Pamela. “W hither W ebring?” W eekly feature from Y our Mining Co. G uide to Personal Web Pages. 3 Nov. 1997. ‹ h ttp :// p e r s o n a l w e b . t q n . c o m / l i b r a r y / w e e k l y / a a l 10397.h tm › (April 21, 1998). 6. Wilder, Clinton. “Lord of the Rings.” Informa­ tion Week Issue 605 (November 11, 1996): 12. 7. Marlatt, A ndrew, “‘W eb Rings’ Emerge as Alternative to Search Engines.” Internet World. 20 O c to b e r 1997.