A. Collections and Libraries

The H-Net web site hosts a wide range of scholarly resources and an increasing number of digitized archival collections. Some of the most extensive collections include H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences (www.h-net.org/reviews); the H-Net Job Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences (www.h-net.org/jobs); the H-Net Book Channel, a book announcement service that informs readers of recently published titles in their field (networks.h-net.org/h-net-book-channel); and the H-Net Events Database (networks.h-net.org/h-announce), which provides a searchable listing of academic conferences, calls for papers and submissions, fellowships, and workshops/seminars. Teaching resources, including syllabi, and links to multimedia resources are also archived on the individual discussion network sites (networks.h-net.org/networks).

B. Programs

By creating and enhancing international, electronic communication within communities of scholars, teachers, advanced students, and related professionals, H-Net facilitates the digital transmission of information by those committed to research, teaching, learning, public outreach, and professional service. Among H-Net’s most important activities is its sponsorship of nearly 200 free, interactive, digital networks that aim to advance research, teaching, learning, public outreach, and professional service within a range of specialized areas of knowledge. Each network is edited by a board of scholars who span the globe, including North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific. These networks reach nearly 200,000 subscribers in more than 90 countries daily, making H-Net the world’s largest distributor of academic networks.

H-Net networks enable scholars to communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new approaches, methods, and tools of analysis; to build digital projects and share information on digital resources; and to test new ideas and share comments on the literature in their fields. The networks provide a timely distribution of scholarly reviews, teaching materials, and other breaking news in the disciplines and subject areas they span. H-Net also offers a range of services including the H-Net Job Guide, H-Net Journals, and H-Net Spaces. Logs of all messages are permanently archived and can be easily searched and sorted by date, subject, network, and author from the H-Net web site.

While the computing heart of H-Net resides at Michigan State University, H-Net’s officers, editors, and subscribers come from all over the globe. These volunteer editors and officers provide the energy and direction for H-Net’s networks and services, including active editing of online discussion forums, editing and publication of professional reviews, and the publication of essays and teaching materials at individual network web sites.

Facilitating scholarly communication and endeavors across national and international boundaries is central to H-Net’s activities. H-Net sees its mission broadly, and focuses much attention on sponsorship of projects, support, and training for humanities and social science researchers and teachers both within the United States and around the globe. H-Net provides support for scholarly societies by hosting discussion lists and web sites, as well as archiving publications, discussions, and related materials..

The H-Net Commons, networks.h-net.org/networks, is the home of H-Net's services. It integrates moderated content of many types, including discussions, multimedia, blogs, custom pages, and annotated links to resources for historians. The Commons is a content management system that leverages the field expertise of H-Net's hundreds of volunteer editors and thousands of subscribers through projects and resources created for these communities of practice.

An international organization, H-Net brings together researchers and teachers who are working in related areas and helps them to take advantage of funding opportunities in information technology-related fields. Such partnerships are forged through H-Net’s sponsorship of a variety of sessions and at major meetings of scholarly societies, including the AHA, Organization of American Historians, Social Science History Association, American Political Science Association, African Studies Association, International Congress of the Historical Sciences, and others. The goal of these sessions is to provoke ongoing evaluation and discussion of ways multimedia and Internet technologies can enhance research and teaching within the historical profession. Teaching and technology remain central to H-Net’s foci as well.

C. Publications

H-Net has also become a recognized leader in online publishing by developing new formats that take full advantage of communication and computer technologies. H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences is just one example of these endeavors. An online scholarly review journal that has published over 50,000 book and software reviews since 1995, H-Net Reviews bring a new dimension to the world of academic publishing. The reviews are published online via H-Net’s discussion networks, and are fully searchable and archived on the H-Net web site. This permits the reviews to reach scholars with a speed unmatched in any other medium. It also makes a new kind of interactivity possible, as reviewers, authors, and readers engage in discussions of the reviews online. The H-Net Reviews archive is separated into annual volumes (www.h-net.org/reviews). Users can either browse through the volumes individually or make use of the search engine to assist in finding reviews. Many of H-Net’s discussion networks also publish occasional papers, which are then archived on the individual network web sites, along with their corresponding discussions and analysis.

H-Net Journals is a new service from H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online meant to facilitate the publication of high quality open access peer-reviewed scholarship through any of H-Net's subject-specific networks. Journals published under the H-Net Journals banner originate with a decision by a network's editorial board and undergo a careful vetting process by the H-Net Council. All H-Net Journals are managed and overseen by editorial boards of qualified scholars and clearly outline their peer review standards and procedures on their About pages. The inaugural issue of H-Net's first open access peer-reviewed journal from H-Celebration is the Journal of Festive Studies.

H-Net Spaces is a free service that provides scholars in the humanities and social sciences with the tools to manage and build digital academic projects. H-Net Spaces is designed to give scholars the content management infrastructure they need to create, manage, and share their work with their scholarly communities.

D. Fellowships and Awards

H-Net Editor Recognition Fellowships (6 annually)

H-Net Editor Digital Project Fellowships (3 annually)

H-Net Spaces Cohort Fellowships (4-5 annually)