When a chronically overstretched arts organization employs only two people it has to think very long and hard before taking on any business which is likely to destabilise its fragile ecology. The arts sector is littered with the headstones of those who overextended and fell victim to their own ambition.

Having been thus cautioned, consider what purpose a web site for a contemporary art magazine should serve. We asked ourselves this question about five years ago. Scanning what was out there at the time was disappointing. Most magazine sites were little more than advertising flyers for the publication with a contact address. Others had some basic information about the last few issues, a very few were comprehensive and informative eg for the magazine Communication Design which serves a well known international graphic design association.

Should the website serve to add value to the magazine, should it have a life of its own and do something which the magazine cannot do, or should it actually replace the magazine completely?
Today amongst the dozens of good magazine websites there are examples of all three types including Mediamatic magazine which no longer puts out a print version, substituting a CD-Rom and a website.

Right from the first tentative scribble on paper the nexus for us was a series of abstract nouns relating to the subjects which Artlink as a thematic magazine has addressed. Through the many versions of the site and its design that was always the central point. In keeping with our mission to link issues of society with visual art we wanted first and foremost to serve those who are interested in these matters. So one of the first thing the user sees on our home page is a longish pulldown list of subjects. As new issues are published that list of subjects will get longer.

The connecting of these subjects with our content over the last 10 years was our major objective for the site. Encouraged by the visionary and energetic Chris Limmer and Tony Pfitzner of IT&E (previously WebMedia), our longstanding internet sponsor, we embarked on a journey with them into the deep space of relational databases, inspired by the vision of storing and retrieving references via many pathways through a structure which would not demand a webmaster, nor pose a threat to our need to focus on the core business of publishing Artlink.

Accepting that there would be pain at the start which would abate when the site was fully operational, we started the long and demanding process of indexing all our articles, using not only the subjects but the authors, the artists illustrated, the media used, the institutions and the major exhibitions mentioned as our indices. Our Chairperson Janet Maughan dedicated months of her evenings to the Herculean task of indexing the issues of 1990 - 1999.

The joy of this type of website, known as dynamically-generated content, is that through an administration site we can enter new material into the data base as it happens, and the existing material is automatically updated online. Corrections can be made online just by accessing the data base. All the graphics and other links will automatically relate.

With the help of a small grant from Arts SA this year we were able to get the site to preview stage by the time of our public lecture on 7 October, (see Artrave next page) when it was demonstrated to an admiring audience. We now have the task of completing the indexing of eight issues (2000 and 2001) and doing the necessary work to convert the marketing end of the site to e-commerce so that readers worldwide will be able to order and pay for individual back issues and subscriptions online. This should be in place by the end of 2001.

In terms of a website doing things which a magazine cannot, we are taking it a step at a time, but we are sure that the structure we have built will be able to accommodate add-ons – like incorporating more images and editorial relating to our topics than we can fit into the magazine. This is a logical extension of the process of research which goes into each themed issue and which usually throws up far more quality material than we can physically print. Please check us out at www.artlink.com.au!