Introduction to Community Links

Community Links provides an organized and annotated guide to Web resources concerning Tibet and the Himalayas. It provides users a central portal to find these resources, in addition to analytical summaries alerting users to the utility and relevance of the resources in question. It identifies resources created or in use by the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library with a small logo, but otherwise THDL projects are listed in identical fashion to all other projects. We are at present buildilng a data driven repository for these annotated bibliographic entries which will include online submission mechanisms (due for delivery by September 1). In the meantime, we are offering only a few links to large resources, but welcome users to contact us at thdlcommunity@virginia.edu with suggestions for new entries using the following format or offers to serve as editors.

THDL's annotated and classified guide to various Web sites pertaining to Tibet and the Himalayas does not entail any endorsement of the sites in question. THDL does not accept any responsibility for the content or use of any of these Web sites, and has no official relationship with any web sites that are not explicitly branded as part of THDL. When a non-THDL web site is accessed, one has left the space of THDL and THDL no longer has any relationship or position with regards to all content from thereon out.

To go straight to current modest amount of links, please click on community, collections, reference, tools or education from below:

| Content Classifications | Community | Collections | Reference | Tools | Education |

Bibliographies of the Web

Bibliography is the activity of cataloging, classifying and describing in summary fashion intellectual products. While most often associated with books, of course it also embraces movies, music, newpapers, and so forth. As the Web becomes an ever more important site for publication and the dissemination of information, the task of the bibliography must centrally address Web sites. Cataloging of Web sites involves a number of unique problems not faced in traditional bibliographical work: Web sites can vanishes so that bibliographical citations can be left hanging with no reference; URLS can change so that the resources may persist while the identifying URLs are altered without warning; Web sites often involve constant revision without any archiving of previous cited forms; and finally sites can be extremely slight either as simple announcements, or as preliminary advertisements for projects under construction that may or may not eventually bear fruit.

Our bibliographical project thus treats Web sites as important as other medium for the publication and dissemination of knowledge and art. We do not have easy answers for the biblographical problems that Web sites raise. We plan to use link-checking software in the near future to automatically monitor the problem of broken links. The provision of dated descriptions of Web sites (see below) provides some orientation for the user in terms of assessing the problem of the unstable form of Web sites. Finally, our use of a priority rating indicating the relative substance of Web sites as Web sites is intended to aid users in filtering out Web sites which may be largely promotions, announcements of intended projects, or simple sites for distribution (yet still indexing such sites).

Our bibliographical cataloging of Web sites with relevance for Tibet and the Himalayas involves the following categories:

Title & URL

URL provides the Web address of the resource. When the resource is an internal component of a larger site, the URL if possible directs the user directly to the relevant resource. When not possible, the title indicates how a user proceeds from the given URL to the relevant resource.

Title provides a succint title of the resource. It is generally the title of the Web site itself, but in some cases may be provided by the bibliographer. In the latter cases, it is made as short and descriptive as possible, and is prefaced with *).

Summary & Description

Summary provides a short summary of the Web site which is an analytical evaluation of the site in its current state. The intention of these annotations is to help users assess whether a given Web site has relevant content, as well as alert them to content included in the site that a casual inspection might otherwise skip over. The description should be no longer than a paragraph and attempt as much as possible to highlight the essentials.

Description provides more detailed descriptive annotations of the Web site's content. It allows a reviewer to give more detailed information on the Web site, including tips on its use, problems, and so forth beyond the brief summary.

Publisher

This classifies the publisher of the Web site, rather than its content.

• academic: this includes all schools, from primary schools to universities.
• commercial: when a company selling goods is publishing the web site.
• government: when a government office is publishing the web site.
• library: this includes all libraries, whether they belong to the government, academy or are independent organizations.
• NGO: NGO is an abbreviation for "non-governmental organization," such as foundations and so forth.
• personal: when a single individual is publishing a Web site without any commerical or institutional affiliation that is being represented.
• other: this category should be used when the others don't fit. In such cases, also contact us at thdl@virginia.edu so that we can consider the category in question for possibile formal inclusion as a new type.

Resource type

Resource type provides a simple specification of the "type" of resource the Web site represents for use in filtering out sites according to the user's interest. A given site can have multiple "types", though if it the site being classified is a component of a larger site, the type should be for the component, not the broader site. Our current types are as follows:

• collections: this is a broad category for sites whose primary attributes are on-line collections of data they are delivering, whether texts, images, video, audio, maps, datasets or whatever.
• commercial: this is used when the primary point of the site is to sell products not available on-line. If a site sells access to on-line resources, then it is classified according to the content being sold rather than be classified as "commercial".
• communication: these sites are about people talking with each other - chat rooms, mailing list sites that intended for two way communication (not just sending out information by a central administrator), discussion forums, and so forth.
• documentation: these sites are devoted primarily to providing documentation, such as of technical issues, standards, and the like. There is obviously some overlap with "collections", but on the whole the line between the two is fairly clear.
• education: these sites provide on-line study materials, syllabi, information about study abroad programs, and the like.
• entertainment: these sites are primarily intended for recreational use, such as children games, etc.
• news: these sites including digests of news articles, newspapers, news radio sites and the like.
• online guide: these sites primarily provide online guides to other resources, such as annotated links to other Web sites, or bibliographies of print, audio, or other resources.
• organizational info: these sites are primarily intended to represent an organization, rather than offering the resources of that organization. Thus a typical University web site would be classified as this as such, even if its some of its component parts might provide actual collections that get classified separately. This includes sites representing government offices and work when the site is largely about those offices; however a government-based on-line collection would still go under "collections", and so on.
• personal info: these sites primarily represent an individual and his/her activities, work, etc.
• tools: these sites provide tools such as fonts, software and so forth. If they are commerical products, then they are also typed as "commerical"; if its distributing technical documentation, it goes under "documentation" but if it is distributing tools, it goes here.
• other: this category should be used when the others don't fit. In such cases, also contact us at thdl@virginia.edu so that we can consider the category in question for possibile formal inclusion as a new type.

Content classification

We have created a three leveled content classification scheme to classify the content of each web site. This scheme roughly mirrors the organization of THDL as well, since THDL's structure was also created to mirror the diversity of types of knowledge existing about Tibet and the Himalayas. The classifications allow users to specify what type of Web sites they are interested in, and easily locate only those Web sites. There is a partial overlap with "resource type", but resource type is intended to be a very simple typing of broad categories only. Please notice that any given resource can be classified in multiple ways to maximize the likelihood one will find the relevant resources under whatever classification one consults. The following five categories are the top level classifications (see Content Classifications for the full hierarchy):

• Collections: these are sites whose main focus is collections of data delivered on-line - videos, images, audio, texts, etc.
• References: these are materials indexed according "who", "what", "when", etc. - dictionaries, gazetteers, encyclopedias, timelines, and the like.
• Community: this includes all sites devoted to communication (chat rooms, mailing lists, etc.), the representation of organizations and individuals, community services and development initiatives and the like.
• Education: this includes on-line coursers, syllabli, teaching and study materials, information about schools and so forth.
• Tools : this includes all sites with technical documentation, software, fonts, and so forth.

Language

The interface language specifies the language(s) that is used for navigation of the site, i.e. the interface language. This allows people to filter for Web sites with an interface in a language they can't understand. Just having electronic texts or other materials in a given langugage is not relevant - the issue is whether an interface is provided for that language.

Other language(s) specifies other languages represented in the Web site, whether in audio or textual form, but which are not used for the primary interface or navigation. At present the choices (which can be expanded as necessary): Tibetan, Nepali, English, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, French, German, Russian. Incidental references to a language are not counted. If multiple languages are cited, they are followed with a parenethical number from 1 to 3 to indicate the current level of ACTUAL usage within the Web site of that language (1=extensive, 2=modest, 3=slight).

Region

Region indicates the geograpraphical scope of the Web site. At present we are only indexing sites on whether they concern Tibet, Bhutan, or Nepal (multiple regions can be selected). This allows users to filter through a given thematic category to only see those that concern the cultural regions they are interested in. At a later date, we may add additional categories so that sites can be indexed according to cultural subregions, such as Kham, Amdo, Ngari, Utsang and so forth for Tibet. This classifies the content focus of the site, and not the geographical locus of the people running the site. Thus there may be a Nepal-based site about Bhutan, which would be classified as Region=Bhutan, not Region=Nepal. A site presenting life in America done by Tibetans and in Tibetan language would be classified as "U.S."; however it would still be included within THDL's bibliographies as a Tibetan project. Hence will most likely need to greatly expand the list of regions to deal with these issues as bibliographers bring specific cases to our attention.

• Bhutan: this corresponds to the modern nation of Bhutan and its historical predecessors.
• Nepal: at present, Nepal is being used to refer to the modern nation state of Nepal and its predecessors. Of course much of nothern Nepal is culturally Tibetan; in those cases the site should be classified as concerning "Nepal" and "Tibet".
• Tibet: "Tibet" here is not limited to any political entity, but rather covers the entirety of cultural Tibet, as well as all the political entities that historically existed iin areas dominated by Tibetan populations.
• Tibet and Himalayas: this is for sites which deal with the entire area.

External links to the resource

This provides the number of external sites that link to this Web resource. Such numbers provide a measure of how commonly known and used the site is.

• Over 3,000: in other words, over 3,000 Web sites have links that go to this Web resource.
• Under 3,000: and likewise.
• Under 1,000: and likewise.

Web site rating

This indicates the level of importance attached to the Web site as a Web site by the bibliographer. This rating is used in displaying results for a given category, so that users are provided a guide as to the relative importance and density of the sites listed. The important thing to keep in mind with regard to rating is that the rating classifies sites in accordance with on-line functions: the subject of the Web site - a monastery, author, products, or whatever - may be of extreme importance, but the assessment as to its rating is based on the utility and importance of the Web site as such. For example, a site may sale several wonderful resources, but as a Web site offers no content on-line nor does it function as a vendor for a wide array of resources. Thus it will not receive a high rating. However a commerical site that offers thousands of book for sale might receive an "essential" rating - applied in its capacity as a commerical vendor. Every review has a date in case the rating and other attributes becomes dated - we welcome the site adminisrators, or anyone, to call attention to errors, bias, dated material or any other problem with a given review. The gradations of rating are as follows:

• essential: this signifies that the resource in question should be used consistently by anyone with an interest in the subject.
• very useful: this signifies the resource is of high use and value, though not as yet absolutely essential.
• useful: this signifies that the resource is of consistent utility, though it is not as yet a major on-line resource.
• interesting: this signifies the resource is worth investigating, but either only has modest aims, or has yet to really become fully functional.
• marginal: this signifies the resource is of only minor use.

Reviewer

Reviewed by and Review date give credit to the annotator, alert the user to just how recent/out of date the annotation may be, and finally help the user judge the reliability of the annotation in terms of the identity of the annotator.