About LANIC

The Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) is affiliated with the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) at the University of Texas at Austin. LANIC has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and UT Austin''s College of Liberal Arts. LANIC is a key component of the International Information Systems, also based at UT Austin.

LANIC''s mission is to facilitate access to Internet-based information to, from, or on Latin America. Our target audience includes people living in Latin America, as well as those around the world who have an interest in this region. While many of our resources are designed to facilitate research and academic endeavors, our site has also become an important gateway to Latin America for primary and secondary school teachers and students, private and public sector professionals, and just about anyone looking for information about this important region.

In addition to our core information services, LANIC sponsors several related programs, including a number of Internet-related Training Initiatives.

LANIC''s editorially reviewed directories contain over 12,000 unique URLs, one of the largest guides for Latin American content on the Internet.

Our Gopher server, launched in 1992, was the first such information service for Latin America on the Internet, as was our Web Site, which has been in continuous service since 1994. For five years, LANIC has served as the official registration authority for Latin American Studies at the World Wide Web Consortium''s (W3C) Virtual Library, a precursor to Yahoo! as the Web''s first large-scale subject catalog.

LANIC Redesign

In the Spring of 2008, LANIC initiated a long-awaited redesign with the goal of increasing accessibility, usability, and visual appeal.

Accessibility: LANIC is implementing the use of XHTML while taking a wide range of platforms, browsers, and ways of browsing the Web into account, particularly regarding the use of colors and the placement of elements on pages. For example, while most users will never notice this change, our navigation lists on subject and country pages now appear in the code before the lists of links, thereby facilitating access for our visitors who use screen readers or text-based browsers. LANIC has come into greater compliance with standards and guidelines set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the University of Texas.

Usability: While seeking to maintain useful, unique aspects of directory pages where appropriate, staff members now use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to provide a more uniform experience across pages. We hope such uniformity will make browsing LANIC easier and more predictable.

Visual appeal: We have chosen new colors and other changes to visual aspects with accessibility, attractiveness, and continuity with previous versions of LANIC in mind. At times, these concerns have been at odds, while at other times, they have been mutually reinforcing. We hope you enjoy the updated color scheme, logo, and other visual changes.

We welcome comments and questions and are particularly eager to hear from visitors who have encountered difficulties in using redesigned pages so that we can quickly address your concerns as we go forward with changes