Classification and the webmaster.

This series of websites has thousands of pages. Each page represents another small article. When the article is written, it may have a particular audience, but not necessarily a website "home."

Each article must be classified various times:

• It goes into a particular website
• Within that website it goes into a selected directory
• That directory may have a subdirectory

That means that the webmaster has to make decisions.

• No articles are dumped into a permanent "general" file.
• Articles that have more than one subject may be placed in only one directory.

Librarians face similar situations all the time. We place books on specific shelves in the library, even if they do not fit our classification, and even when they have more than one subject. Even if the library has two copies of a book, both copies must be shelved in the same location.

In some occasions, a new article "felt" like one that was written previously. An intensive search of many hours does not always reveal the other article.

Most of the articles are linked to other articles in the series. Librarians would see this as cross-references in the catalogue. Readers may think of them as "see also" references.

The websites have three indexes, all of which are in preparation. The articles listing has a rotated title list; the topics listing is classified according to subject headings, and the keywords are cross-referenced at the bottom of each page.

Anybody can find any article in any website. It's all organized, just like a good library.

Some websites list several web pages with related articles from other websites or directories. This is particularly evident in Our Jewish Groups websites. Other websites, such as Jewish Glossaries and the Jewish Special Needs Links, have nothing more than links to other websites. Bibliographers will recognize this need in any active library.

This project also features a series of forums. Each forum posts guidelines and special issues on its own mini-website.

Clearly, there is little difference between this series of websites and a well-organized library.