SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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SASNET’s Newly-Designed Website to be launched on Tuesday 6 September 2011

Julia Velkova from SASNET and Bernd Wunsch from Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), responsible for the remake of SASNET’s extensive web site.

It has been more than a decade since the first SASNET website was launched with lots of enthusiasm shortly after the birth of the organization. Over the course of ten years, SASNET has managed to establish an enormous resource bank and national network of Swedish research related to South Asia, currently consisiting of almost 1,900 web pages.
The website, network, and activities have received thousands of visitors, and more than 2000 people read our newsletter. As we saw that the content of the website had grown far beyond the “body” in which it was stored, we started to look for a new solution.
In January of 2011 we began a collaboration with NIAS, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at Copenhagen University. Our idea was to jointly develop a new portal solution for the great volume of information that made SASNET such a valuable resource. We wanted to make the website easier to use so that our colleagues, collaborators, and visitors could better access its broad content. The idea was also to expand it into a Nordic resource. After more than eight months of intensive work, meetings and discussions, SASNET’s new website has arrived! It will (hopefully) be functional on Tuesday 5th September 2011.

It will use the same address as before: http://www.sasnet.lu.se

What is new?

The layout of the website is cleaner and simpler. A powerful integrated search engine is in place. Any duplicated information has been removed. We have retained the main menu sections, but have organized them in a more structured way through the use of sub-sections. Current news, conferences and feature items are easily accessible from the homepage and the news sections it contains. Updates from the website can now be received from both the newsletter and through RSS feeds at the bottom of the news sections it contains. All information and databases are updated every day, year around.
In a few weeks we will launch an improved version of our researcher database in which researchers can register and edit their own information. In this way, we hope researchers will be encouraged to keep us updated about their latest activities and forthcoming projects.
We are working toward increasing the information we offer about South Asian research even more. With the assistance of NIAS and their database, we hope to add news feeds covering all Nordic countries.

What has remained the same?

We update our information daily, including news about conferences, research collaborations, projects, culture, and much more concerning South Asian research in Sweden and other Nordic countries.
We believe that neither in Sweden nor in any other Nordic country is there a resource of such specificity and scope on South Asian research. You can help by sending us information about your work, your institution, and anything else related to your interest in South Asia.

The web team

The new website has been constructed by Julia Velkova (SASNET) and Bernd Wunsch (NIAS), with the kind assistance of the IT section at Lund University (LDC), and NIAS Library Department.
Please note that since the volume of information on the website is very high, some pages are yet to be imported, and you might in the beginning experience redirects to the old SASNET website. This is a temporary situation. You can be assured that we are working hard to transfer all remaining information as soon as possible.

We hope you will enjoy our new website and will let us know what you think.

Kind regards,

Julia Velkova      Lars Eklund      Anna Lindberg

SASNET