News

EXARC launching new website

In 2015, we decided to make a new EXARC website. The old website dated to 2012 and was quite complicated. The total project from start to end took three years. We started by separating the five EU project websites from the main EXARC website, including all their files and databases. A year later, we migrated the bibliography, counting 11,000 titles away. It is now hosted by tDAR under www.experimentalarchaeology.net.

Following on this we could move to another server and remove some software modules, which were not needed anymore. We then started the migration of the remaining data into the latest version of our content management system, Drupal. By now, the website has become more robust.

That was the moment we could finally start redesigning the 2,500+ pages we currently host. The new website (2018) is more user friendly (clear navigation and responsive design make it possible to view our website on every device from desktop until smartphone). It is not only a website of our association, but we made the content more accessible to anybody interested in EXARCs themes. Our institutional members are now in three parts: museums, higher education centres and clubs/groups. We added information about our 300+ members. We highlight what EXARC is good at: our Online Journal with 300+ articles, our Calendar of Events and for example our Reading Corner with the Glossary, Manuals and the House of Questions. Of course, we still have the overview with all 500 or more archaeological open-air museums we know of worldwide.

The final bits were bringing the archive of past REARC and EAC conferences online and making landing pages for our four legs: Archaeological Open-Air Museums, Experimental Archaeology, Ancient Technology and Interpretation.

And now we hope this website will be serving us well for another 5 years...

Thank you for all the support!