This grant will be used in developing software for The LINGUIST Network, an electronic discussion forum for academic linguists produced at Eastern Michigan University and Texas A&M University. In its 5 years of operation, LINGUIST has become the central international clearinghouse for information relevant to linguistics. Its current issues and 10,000 back issues represent a rich source of data about languages, linguistic methodology, and the sociology of the discipline. However, LINGUIST has come to need additional software to support its expanding list of services and to accommodate the dramatic changes in Internet technologies that have occurred during the last 5 years. Such software will enable LINGUIST to develop its new World Wide Web site in such a way as to provide functionalities not commonly available and to accomplish its ultimate goal: offering the discipline a central location for storage and retrieval of the rapidly expanding amount of linguistic information on the Web.
