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U aids in research for online resource

August 31, 2001
Dr. Nancy Nelson Knupfer is project planning director of the new online encyclopedia called —

Students of all ages will benefit from the creation of “Michigana,” a proposed online encyclopedia of Michigan history and culture.

The Michigan Humanities Council announced Monday that Dr. Nancy Nelson Knupfer was hired as the project planning director for the encyclopedia, which will be launched in about a year.

A $50,000 grant was awarded to the council for the project from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Michigan Humanities Council will work with the MATRIX program at MSU to create the encyclopedia.

MATRIX, the Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online is in the College of Arts and Letters. It will specialize in the interactive design for “Michigana.”

“The whole idea here is to connect people,” Knupfer said. “People will be interacting through this site as a learning place and sharing resources.”

Knupfer has been a professor of educational computing, design and telecommunication at Kansas State University since 1991 and has worked on various online projects for universities and private corporations across the country.

The grant will be used for this year’s planning, consultants and research, and the project will grow over the year, Knupfer said.

“We have a long-term partnership with the council,” said MATRIX director and associate history professor Mark Kornbluh. “We’ll host their Web site and a wide range of projects on the Internet.”

More than 30 MSU students are involved with the MATRIX program and several other Internet projects the organization is involved with, but no student have been chosen to work on the planning of the encyclopedia. But Kornbluh said students interested in Internet technology should apply to the program.

“The MATRIX provides a lot of opportunity for MSU students interested in working for Internet projects,” he said.

The “Michigana” encyclopedia will provide historical information from Michigan’s past to the present and will use the latest software technology for updated graphics and photographs.

Users will also be able to share their information with others interested in the same topics.

“One of the reasons we want to make it dynamic is so it becomes a resource that brings history from its past state to a present state,” said Knupfer. “Certainly state libraries, museums, government bodies, community groups and individual people should all be linked through this process. Whether you’re an artist who presents something in a festival or someone who works in a more formal structure, you need to be able share information with each other.”

With the creation of “Michigana,” students and Michiganians of any age will be able to access databases of historical information beneficial to them.

“That is a prime target audience,” Michigan Humanities Council spokesman Scott Hirko said. “Those with the greatest need would be students and educators.”

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