Now that we at

EBN have finally the caught up with the trends and have created our own website, we can slow down long enough to ask: Why are we doing this, anyway? Didn’t we have enough to do just publishing on paper? At least the courts have struck down Internet censorship, so we don’t have to worry about getting in trouble for distributing our pictures of buildings in various stages of undress.

For those of us in the information business, the Internet is both a remarkable opportunity and a potential threat. The advantages of distributing information on the Internet, even at this early stage in the evolution of the medium, are extremely compelling. Background material and related resources for any given article can be just a mouse-click away. For example, some people reading our news story on the use of manganese dioxide in bricks might be curious about the toxicity of this metal. Well, on our website there is a link to a document at a remote location with all those details.

Also, the space limitations that we struggle with as we assemble each issue of

EBN are simply not a factor on the World Wide Web. As long as it is well organized, there is almost no practical limit on the amount of text that can be distributed. Due to the limited space we can devote to it, our printed calendar contains only those events that we have deemed most relevant to our national—and international—audience. On the Web, however, we can post as much as we like, so you’ll find that our calendar webpage has many more events of local or more specialized interest.

Of course for us, as for many other publishers, there is a big question looming over all this excitement: since nearly everything on the Web is free, how do we continue to make a living? For some, advertising can provide the answer. But just as in print we have resisted carrying ads so as to remain free of undue influence in our editorial stance, we are reluctant to take ads in cyberspace as well. Our hope is that once more people get used to the Internet, the idea of paying for access to high-quality, clearly presented information will not seem unreasonable. This evolution is not all that unlikely. In fact, the exponential growth of information is already creating jobs for people who can help you sift through the mess and find what you need.

For the time being, we are walking a fine line. We are offering unrestricted access to a website that has, we hope, enough meat to attract users and become established as a significant resource. At the same time, we are reserving the vast majority of our current information for you, our paying subscribers. Before long we may be offering digital, as well as print, subscriptions.

But as we spend more and more time with this powerful and compelling medium of information transfer, it’s important to remember that it is no more than that—a vehicle for information. Its speed and versatility may cause it to gradually replace the printed page. It’s no substitute, however, for real, in-the-flesh encounters with people and animals and plants and rocks and trees. If we let the Web take us away from those things, we run the risk of forgetting why we wanted all this environmental information in the first place.

– Nadav Malin