MEDIA ADVISORY

TO:                      News Directors

FROM:                 Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, UAF

SUBJECT:            Circumpolar Network World Wide Web Site

LOCATION:         Southcentral Alaska Museum of Natural History, Parkgate Building, Old Glenn Highway, Eagle River

DATE & TIME:     October 26, 1995

The UAF Department of Journalism has recently joined McGill University to create and maintain a Circumpolar Network World Wide Web site. Lael Morgan, chair of the department, said, "The goal of the project is to provide a forum for indigenous people, journalists, academics and those affiliated with non-profit entities who wish to improve and facilitate communications around the Circumpolar Rim."

This fall, Fairbanks, Canada and Greenland will go on line. Denmark, Russia and Hokkaido, Japan will follow.

The web pages will contain much "read only" data from many sources, and will also contain a bulletin board and place for users to offer meeting notices, call for papers, comment on the project and job opportunities. The World Wide Web will allow the system to link with other web pages, some of which will include: State of Alaska Web Network, Indigenous Broadcast Center, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Alaska Educational Resources and SLED, the Alaska library system maintained by UAF that links libraries and other references from around the country.

The Project's initial funding will come from a University of Alaska President's Grant.

In addition to Morgan, Marianne Stenbaek, head of the Eben Hopson Circumpolar Media Lab at McGill, and David Vickery, a graduate student at UAF, will work on the project. Vickery will design the web page, link it to those who wish to be involved and train a student to maintain the system. Stenbaek will help recruit academics in Greenland, Denmark and Russia.

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CONTACT: Lael Morgan, Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, (907) 474-7995, or e-mail at FFLM@aurora.alaska.edu; David Vickery at FSDMV@aurora. alaska.edu or Suzanne Bishop, UAF Public Information Officer, (907) 474-6443, e-mail to FNSSB2@aurora. alaska.edu.

SSB/10-27-95/96-26 med.adv.