List members may be interested in the following announcement,
which has been sent to the Social Policy Association.
Caroline Glendinning
Vice Chair, SPA
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Date sent: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 11:15:05 +0100 (BST)
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ritish Academy Media Release
For immediate release, 1 July 2002
NEW ELECTRONIC RESEARCH TOOL FOR THE HUMANITIES
AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
The British Academy is today opening PORTAL, its directory of
online
resources for researchers in the humanities and social sciences.
The
PORTAL launch marks the Academy's Centenary with a new,
modern service
for scholars and researchers.
PORTAL offers scholars easy access to online information about
research resources in all areas of the humanities and social
sciences.
PORTAL is intended primarily for post-graduate or post-doctoral
workers, but covers resources of interest to a wider community.
PORTAL resource sites are selected for their high quality and
potential utility to the academic community, responsible ownership and
up-to-date state.
"This website will be an invaluable aid to scholars at the start of
the Academy's second century," says British Academy Vice-President,
Karen Spärck Jones, Professor of Computers and Information at
Cambridge University. "By linking only to high-standard sites that are
accessible without subscription, PORTAL offers its users directions to
resources with substantial content and of continuing interest, without
the nuisance of promotional material or access constraints".
PORTAL has a simple, convenient user interface, with a range of tools
for searching the directory.
The website is launched on 1 July 2002 and marks a 'next-century'
element to the Academy's Centenary celebrations. It will be exhibited
at an international Centenary conference at the British Museum on 3
July. The launch follows a period of testing and consultation with the
scholarly community. The website is open to all at no charge.
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. PORTAL is located on the British Academy's website:
http://www.britac.ac.uk/portal
2. A full programme for the Academy's Centenary conference can be
found on the Academy's website:
http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/cent/wed.html If you would like to
attend, please contact Jonathan Breckon at the British Academy,
telephone: 020 7969 5263.
3. PORTAL covers the whole range of subjects which fall within the
Academy's remit, from ancient history and the classics to geography
and psychology. Links to numerous types of resource are included such
as texts of major works, images of artworks and artefacts, datasets,
maps, and dictionaries and encyclopedias.
4. Users are able to access the directory either by browsing by
subject area, using the search tool, or by looking up key words in
PORTAL's subject index. Most of the sites listed in PORTAL are run by
individual academics, research centres, university departments or
government departments and international organisations.
5. The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902,is the
national academy for the humanities and social sciences. It is an
independent learned society which aims, among the disciplines is
promotes, to represent the interests of scholarship nationally and
internationally and to promote understanding of research and
scholarship.
For further press information:
Jonathan Breckon T: 020 7969 5263, M: 07931 560 953, Email:
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