The Feminism and Women’s Studies site, one of 44 websites hosted by the EServer, was first designed in 1993 by members of the Carnegie Mellon University Women’s Center. One of the earliest women’s studies web sites on the Internet, our site has since the outset been very well known: today it is number 2 in Google searches for “feminism” and number 4 in Google searches for “women’s studies”, and is currently one of the most popular women’s studies web sites in the world, currently publishing documents to approximately 25,000 readers per month.
The site is not solely an academic web site, nor is it “nonacademic.” Instead, it contains documents and links to quality information which represent the perspective of previous editors (who solicited resources that represent a cultural studies view) on women’s studies. For the past four years it has been maintained by a three-person team of former MA students from the Carnegie Mellon University Literary and Critical Theory program. However, these editors are now moving on to other projects. As a result, the EServer administrative board is currently redesigning the site, and looking for a new editor (or editorial team) to manage the content.
Please feel free to explore this prototype. We haven’t finished its redesign, or finished migrating the old content to the new site, but Brooke Weber, an undergraduate intern from the Greenlee School, has developed a detailed plan for the new design which we are currently implementing. As soon as we finish the graphic design, finish copying the older content, and recruit a new editor (or small team of editors), we will announce the new site, and automatically direct Internet readers from the old to the new URL address.
The new version of the web site is based on a content management system called “Plone,” a software package that generates web pages without the editors needing to have special software on their computers or know HTML (although, of course, they may use additional software or HTML if they wish to). As a result, it will be easy to post new works or to add new links, even for volunteers without experience publishing on the Web.
