 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
LATEST NEWS The new website will be launched early next summer - in the meantime there is lots of work going on behind the scenes....... Project Progress Thanks to a £1.6m grant from the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund, images and recordings are now being compiled for more than 1,000 British animals, plants and fungi, including endangered species, as well as familiar ones. At the same time, a grant of £0.5m from the UK’s New Opportunities Fund, awarded this summer, is enabling work to begin in the next couple of months on building profiles of 500 of the world’s most endangered species. ARKive’s long-term aim is to compile similar records - where materials exist - for all of the 6,000 animals and 33,000 plants in the IUCN’s international Red Lists. While the species research continues, one of the world’s most innovative centres of computer design and invention - Hewlett Packard Labs (Europe) - is donating $2m of technical expertise to develop the infrastructure needed to capture, store, track and retrieve the materials and safeguard copyright. The ARKive team There are now 10 people working full-time on ARKive - with more to come on board in the next few months. The team currently consists of
Two more media researchers, a web developer, another education officer will join in the new year. The Accessions Process This is now well underway for the first 500
species of the British Chapter (the Trust is collaborating closely
with English Nature, and the 500 species are those listed on their
Species Recovery Programme). Layers of discovery and learning ARKive means to be a user-friendly site. So the website will be ‘layered’ to make sure it works for all users, no matter what their wildlife interests, or knowledge - from the youngest schoolchild to the scientific expert. This involves taking a close look at the needs of different audiences. With funding from Hewlett Packard Labs, ARKive and the Institute of Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol, building on work done by the University of the West of England, are exploring how the same source materials can be packaged and re-purposed to suit all users. The research is being aided by students, teachers and educational bodies. ARKive’s researchers are observing how children use the Internet, working with educationalists to understand their web needs, and looking at how to make ARKive’s approach compatible with international standards. Wacky Racers! Another priority for the ARKive website is to show that wildlife learning can be fun. That’s one of the reasons why it will host the screen debut of the world’s rarest snake! Devoured by rats and killed by people, the Antiguan racer was once heading for extinction. But a real-life rescue mission saved it, and now the web can tell its story - using a pilot version of the interactive education modules which ARKive plans to feature. The pilot is aimed at 8 to 12 year-olds and lets them understand how conservationists saved the racer. Video, sound recordings, photos and lively text tell the story. The module is a Wildscreen Trust collaboration with Flora and Fauna International and at-Bristol and is supported by ideas for follow-up activities in the classroom. Visit www.antiguanracer.org The bigger picture ARKive will exist wherever there’s an Internet connection. But it also occupies a real space in Bristol, UK. The project shares its HQ with its parent body, The Wildscreen Trust, which also runs WILDSCREEN, the world’s biggest festival of moving images from the natural world. Both organisations are located within at-Bristol an impressive new visitor destination where the attractions include Wildwalk, a walk-through rainforest and interactive biodiversity exhibition and an IMAX® Theatre. Here, ARKive is also developing a more traditional library. It already includes more than 2,000 wildlife documentaries, including entries from all WILDSCREEN Festivals since 1992, plus many historical titles. There is also a collection of filmed interviews with wildlife film pioneers and specialist books about the history of wildlife film-making and photography. Like the on-line library, it will be accessible to the public soon. Over the past few decades a vast
treasury of wildlife images has been steadily accumulating, yet
no one has known its full extent - or its gaps - and no one has
had a comprehensive way of getting at it. ARKive will put that right.
It will become an invaluable tool for all concerned with the well-being
of the natural world.
FOR FURTHER INFO Harriet Nimmo, ARKive Project Manager NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS 1. ARKive is an initiative of The Wildscreen Trust, a registered charity founded in 1987. The charity also runs the international natural history film and television festival, WILDSCREEN, held biennially in Bristol since 1982. The Trust is based at Wildwalk@Bristol - one of two important new visitor attractions which opened at Harbourside, Bristol, with the support of the Millennium Commission, in 2000. 2. In addition to developing its on-line library, ARKive is also building a traditional reference library of films and books which visitors can view. Images from the collections can be provided electronically, to accompany articles about ARKive. To arrange, please contact Harriet Nimmo (see above). |