austraLasia #1840
The new look ANS - please take a look at
www.infoans.org
ROME: 6th May 2007 -- The launch date for the new look ANS, completely
redesigned and restyled, was set for 6th May, and even though in Rome it was
still the evening of the 5th, in fact in the EAO and South Asia Regions it was
already very early morning of 6th May - so completely appropriate.
There is no doubt that the new approach for ANS is both
professional and pleasing to the eye. It has been designed following
extensive investigation of some of the top online news products worldwide - as
for example most of the major dailies which now have online access. News
items are coupled with photos and where no news item as such but only a
caption's worth came with the photo, then the photo-cum-caption is available in
a separate photonews section. In due course - later this month in fact -
an entire image bank of ANS photos going back over the year, will be available
and this will naturally contain all future photos.
It would be good for people to know that all of this sits on
a Salesian-owned server but not at the Pisana. Many mistakenly think
everything is hosted here. Not so. Edulife, the Salesian
server referred to, is a company in Verona, but Salesian owned, and that is
where www.infoans.org is now situated. We have also moved www.sdb.org to
the same server. Currently (ie in the moments I am writing this news
item) we are endeavouring to successfully connect the two sites so that sdb.org
's usual representation of several ANS news items pulls correctly from the same
database. Not quite there yet, but we will get it there shortly.
Behind the scenes a number of code changes have occurred and while at one level
it is simple enough, at another level it approaches rocket science!
Another development which is moving along gradually, is the
transferral of much regularly sought documentation in sdb.org to the new
sdl.sdb.org (this time with no www in front of it) - in other words a subweb of
sdb.org. It just so happens that this web is not sitting at Verona but on
a simple single computer server at the Pisana. In due course it may be
moved across too. The process is long and detailed - that is, the gradual
moving of documents across, because the 'secret' of SDL is its rapid and
effective search mechanism, and this depends entirely on the accuracy of the
metadata entered in for each item, hence the long timeline in moving the five
official languages across for each document. But of course SDL offers
another possibility - it is not restricted to five languages. Currently,
Korea has offered a stack of its translated Salesian material which it wants to
give wider access to. China is nibbling at the bait, and Fr Compri is considering
making his thousands of letters of Mons. Cimatti likewise available.
There are also several Bahasa Indonesia documents available. English is
largely complete. Italian has just begun with the availability of all the
letters of Fr Vigao's period of office. The other RM letters will follow
over the next few weeks. SDL will operate in parallel to the 'documents'
section on sdb.org for a long time yet. We need to absolutely sure the
system works well before linking up the two directly. Readers of
austraLasia already have easy access to http://sdl.sdb.org
Communications delegates in the EAO and South Asia regions
will have received an email and attachment inviting them to a meeting to be run
by ANS at Cebu in October (from 18-21st). This is also intended for ANS
correspondents. As everyone realises, in both regions, the system works
differently. For EAO it is austraLasia, and for SA it is BIS. And
both these communication realities tend to encourage a broader 'citizen journalist'
approach. I cannot speak for BIS but I can for austraLasia, and it is
clear that the 'every confrere is a correspondent' slogan has worked well,
progressively, over ten years. The news comes in. Many of these items
then become 'formal' candidates for ANS publication. The system works
well. In any year austraLasia has some 60-70 individual 'correspondents'
who have sent in an item of news. We can hardly expect them all to turn
up to Cebu in October!! But at least one from each province would be a
real bonus. That will depend on discussions at the local, provincial
level, obviously.
Final point - after all this, expect a break in service this
week - am on the road until Thursday with only casual and brief opportunities
to connect; that may not allow time for publication.
_________________
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