IAHR Website Redesigned

The IAHR website has been redesigned. Please take a look at it if you have not already done so, at http://www.iahr.dk/.

For a couple of years, it has been evident to the IAHR Executive Committee as well as to the Internet Officer, Prof. Francisco Diez de Velasco, the first Internet Officer in the history of the IAHR, that the IAHR website had to be updated and redesigned to meet new demands and tastes. Something also had to be done due to the very heavy  'behind the scenes machinery' which the ordinary user never sees but which the Internet Officer was acutely aware of.

From the outset, the IAHR Internet Officer, however, also informed the Executive Committee that he did not want to redesign the website himself. The Executive Committee, therefore, has been discussing how to get the job done, effectively, without spending a fortune.

Besides, the new site had to be of such a kind that it does not take a specialist nor cost a fortune to continuously maintain it, post new information, change the names of officers etc. 

Thanks to the President, Prof. Rosalind I.J. Hackett - who has been as devoted to the issues pertaining to the new website as she was to the construction of the old one years ago - Jeremy Hughes at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, agreed to take upon himself the task of redesigning the IAHR website as well as maintaining it on a daily and annual basis. And this for a very reasonable honorarium.

So, let me use this opportunity to thank Jeremy for what he has already done and for what he is going to do, and let me thank the President for her engagement in this. First and foremost, however, allow me to extend thanks to Francisco Diez de Velasco who has been such a trustworthy and reliable partner in the past four years, and who has meticulously maintained the IAHR website in spite of its 'heavy machinery'. It has been a pleasure cooperating with Francisco Diez de Velasco, - and I am happy that we still have some time together even if Francisco no longer will have to deal with my daily requests for additions and the ongoing restructuring of the website.

Now, the redesigned IAHR website at http://www.iahr.dk/ is but a click away. Please go there and make yourself familiar with the new look and the way the various links have been rearranged. The Executive Committee is very pleased with this new site.

While the Executive Committee, as well as several officers from the IAHR member societies, are very pleased with the new look, construction and reconstruction work is still going on behind the scenes, and the website can and must be improved and developed continuously, - and in close cooperation with users.

The primary and most important users of the IAHR website are the members. The individual members of the constituent member societies, and the officers of the executive committees thereof. Therefore I urge you to go visit the new site, to enjoy it but also to do so with a critical eye to possible improvements.

Effective communication of key messages between the member associations and the IAHR Executive Committee c/o the General Secretary is of the uttermost importance. Calls for meetings, minutes from International Committee and General Assembly meetings and other like information are normally mailed directly and separately to the officers of the constituent societies and/or included in IAHR e-Bulletin Supplements, and in the IAHR Bulletin. Such communication, save the print Bulletin, normally is also posted and archived at the IAHR website.

Mostly, none of this constitutes a big challenge (except if the General Secretary does not have the correct current names and addresses of the officers). No, the challenge, to me as General Secretary and to the officers of the member societies, is to find ways to make sure that the information also reaches each individual member of the constituent society. Consequently, please consider if the IAHR can be of any help in regard to this part of the communication with the individual members of the IAHR.

As regards messages from the member societies to the IAHR, and thus to other member societies and to IAHR members around the world, there certainly is need for improvement and changes. It is, thus, not least in regard to the last mentioned kind of communication that I ask you to inform me, the Executive Committee and the webmaster how we may possibly best use the new website for this purpose.

In general feed back on the website will be much appreciated: What kind of innovation do you wish to see at the website beyond what is already there now? What other or different sections or links do you need? Do you want the IAHR to post announcements of your conferences, be it conferences open only to your own national or regional membership or to the IAHR membership in general? Do you need innovations capable of announcing a new issue of your journal, or a book authored by one of your members? Do you wish for a site continuously keeping track of developments and events within the other IAHR member societies? 

Please let us know if you have any wishes and suggestions as to contents and links that may serve your national or regional association better, - and thus also serve the IAHR better.