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Latin American Network Information Center Choose a scenario: You’re a researcher looking for statistical information on the Brazilian economy. Your eighth grader has a five-page report on Andean cultures due tomorrow. You promised everyone something new and different at your next dinner party. Your company wants to start exporting to Mexico and you need to get a handle on NAFTA. You’re putting together a curriculum unit on Latin America for your fourth-grade class. You’ve always wanted to take a vacation in Guatemala. You’re doing a study on the use of the term “imperialism” in Castro’s speeches. You’ve moved here from Mexico and would like to keep up with your country’s news. You want to know more about the Pinochet case in Chile. You’re a Hispanic business person looking for professional organizations to join. Where are you going to go? You’ll find the answer at LANIC, the University of Texas’s premier portal to Latin America. Check out the corresponding pages to the scenarios above and judge for yourself. Since first going online in 1992, LANIC has provided the most comprehensive directory or guide to Internet-based resources to, from, or on Latin America. The LANIC directory includes thirty-nine country pages and fifty-six subject pages containing links to more than 12,000 external sites, all of which have been individually selected, evaluated and cataloged by LANIC staff. Sites linked on the LANIC directory are briefly annotated in the language of the target site to give users additional guidance. Photo by Natalie Arsenault LANIC staff member Meredith Glueck (left) helps a participant at Explore UT work through an interactive program on the Maya culture in Mexico. In addition to building the directory, LANIC works with well-known Latin American institutions to bring resources online. These include a large number of hosted databases and full text resources on regional issues ranging from the economy to historical sources and data sets. LANIC also provides site development for such prestigious organizations as the Association of Research Libraries to build a Web site for shared journal acquisition and interlibrary loan, and the Inter-American Development Bank to develop a Web site for small- and medium-sized enterprise management training in Latin America. In 2001, LANIC was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best of the Web” for Latin American Markets. LANIC averages three million hits a month. Our audience includes Latin Americans and people around the world who have an interest in this region. While designed to facilitate research and academic endeavors, LANIC is also an important resource for primary and secondary school teachers and students, private and public sector professionals and just about anyone looking for information about this region. Carolyn Palaima issue index next article

May 14, 2002 Comments or suggestions to utopa@www.utexas.edu Website comments to Web Administrator Copyright © 2001 Office of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin