ACI Launches New Web Portal

In 2008, ACI celebrates 10 years of advocacy and representation on behalf of the professional artists and arts organizations of Newfoundland Labrador! As part of this celebration, we have undertaken a radical redesign of our primary communications portal: the ACI website.

This beta website you are about to explore is highly interactive and reminiscent of popular social network tools such as Facebook and MySpace. It is the result of an enormous amount of work and energy over the past year, and is designed to support ACI's goal to be a nexus for communications between the various stakeholders in the arts and culture sector in our province. Included in this update are three main new modules:

• A fully interactive Cultural Calendar
• An interactive and searchable Mentorship and Training Database
• New fluid artistic sector pages that include organizational and artist profiles

Users wishing to simply find information on cultural events or mentorship and training can use the site as a search tool. Users wish to add events to the cultural calendar or create mentor/trainer profiles can sign up (free, quick and easy) and create a basic profile that will allow them to use the growing power of the site. (See the links in the top right corner of any page to create a profile and/or log in.)

The new ACI web portal is a living, breathing work in progress and will be updated and tweaked as necessary. Future modules and tools are already in development and will be added to the site when ready. We are taking suggestions from the public on how to improve the useability of the site, what kinds of new modules would be useful for the community, and any tips on how we can better facilitate communications between the cultural producers, their publics, and the government.

Please direct your suggestions (and report any errors or difficulties you may encounter)to us by clicking on this email link: execdir@aci.nfld.net

Since its inception in 1998, the Association of Cultural Industries (ACI) has served as a unified voice for the myriad of cultural workers across the province. As a cross-disciplinary association, ACI has addressed vital issues that span the sector and seeks to encourage the wise growth and resource management necessary to strengthen and enhance the arts.