I’m very happy to announce today the new website for the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA)!

Below the jump is the e-mail I sent out to the SLA announcing the new site.

Some of you may know that last year we established a new spot on the executive committee of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology: that of “digital content editor.” The idea was that the SLA website shouldn’t just be a dumping ground for bureaucratic rules and regulations, but should be both a platform to showcase the discipline to a wider public, as well as portal where members can share resources and ideas. Although the position was only created last year, it is a project we have been working on for over two years now. The first step was to migrate our old Web 1.0 site to a new, modern, platform which was capable of handling the new features we wanted to add to the site. We finished that a little over a year ago, and since then we’ve been working on issues of information architecture and design, finding ways to add new features and content without making the site too difficult to use or navigate. I’m happy to announce that, together with SLA “web guru” Alexandre Enkerli, we finished this second round of website revisions over the weekend! You can read on to learn about some of the changes or, if you’d rather see for yourself, just click on the link:

http://www.linguisticanthropology.org/

The biggest change is that the blog is now much more prominently featured on the main site. It takes up half the front page, instead of a little section on the sidebar. This is because we hope to make the blog a central place for online discussion of issues relating to linguistic anthropology. It is hoped that the blog will draw more people to the site, building a vibrant community in the process. Now that he’s done with the website revisions Alex will put on his “blogger” hat and start putting up new posts on a regular basis, including a regular roundup of posts from the language-related blogsphere. After the AAA meetings, Leila Monaghan, who founded the first linguistic anthropology group blog, will take over my position as “digital content editor.” In this role she will be a true “editor” — helping guide the development of the blog by attracting guest bloggers, organizing web-seminars, as well as other exciting ideas she has up her sleeve.

But that is not all, we’ve also added other features to the site, such as links to our new Twitter feed and Facebook page. A link to subscribe to our blog via e-mail or RSS. A Google calendar with all the meetings and deadlines mentioned in our blog. And a new “resources” tab which will be the home for new features we hope to add to the site. Already up under resources is a new directory of programs in linguistic anthropology (an idea we got from the Society for Visual Anthropology website). Planned for the near future is a database of syllabi (something we used to have but which is now hopelessly out of date). Even though I’m handing the reigns over to Leila, I will continue to work closely with Alex on these new features.

Finally, we’ve tried to spruce up the journal website. More and more scholars are submitting “web enhanced articles” with audiovisual content that supplements their writing. So even though our table of content alerts and archives are now handled by AnthroSource and Wiley, the website still plays an important role supplementing journal articles. To ensure longevity, we are asking authors to post this content to the Internet Archive at archive.org, before sending us the link. This is an area of the site we hope to continue to improve. Alex is already thinking about ways we might standardize the layout of these pages so that they are easier to navigate.

Once again, that URL is:

http://www.linguisticanthropology.org/

Check it out, and let us know what you think! If you have any suggestions, or would like to help out, please let us know. One of the things we’ve added to the site is a feedback form, visible on the botton of the sidebar on every page throughout the site. If you see something that isn’t right, or have a suggestion, just fill out the form and hit “send” – it is that easy!

Cheers,

Kerim