To get into the Valentine’s Day spirit, one needs to look no further than the nearest computer with Internet access. Here are some sites on the World Wide Web providing everything from the historical background of the holiday to quick gift ideas.

Visitors can create a personal Web valentine that will be posted until the end of February. Forms offering a variety of backgrounds, graphic elements and fonts are provided. It is up to you to make sure it all goes well together; some of the items clash badly, creating an unreadable page, but when everything works, this can be an impressive Valentine’s gift. The cost of $4.95 may be made with Mastercard or Visa; card number must be provided online.

This Web site offers a limited variety of free valentine cards, which can be personalized and e-mailed. From silly to serious, the cards are definitely worth their price. As a bonus, visitors can send a humorous valentine to Sen. James Exon (who introduced the recently-passed Communications Decency Act) featuring an image of Michaelangelo’s David with a critical area censored.

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Aphrodite’s Love Page offers the commercial side of Valentine’s Day. There are plenty of opportunities to spend money here on everything from cards to cars. In between, order flowers online and look up the greatest love poems of all time. For those who want to spend every future Feb. 14 with their current partner, Aphrodite’s has an online proposal service.

This is a South African Valentine’s Day site. If you aren’t familiar with the story, you can read about the martyr St. Valentine here. Links to love on the Web, including Web personals, advice on love and letter-writing programs, are provided. The site also offers cards and Valentine’s screen savers.