RECOGNITION is always rewarding, and the winning of the UK Broadband Challenge Award for the HI-Arts web site, accepted on behalf of the team by Fiona Fisher and Ken Porter in London last month, has been a source of great satisfaction in the HI-Arts camp.

We will not allow it to induce complacency, however, and will continue to try to improve the site and the service we offer to artists, audiences and innocent bystanders alike in the Highlands and Islands (and, judging by our mounting monthly ‘hits’ tally, well beyond).

Regular visitors will have realised that although we still employ the old print-based convenience of launching a new ‘issue’ at the beginning of each month, we are actually operating in a more web-based way, and feeding in material on a regular basis throughout the ensuing month. Returning to web sites where nothing has changed is a frustrating experience, and we are doing our best to ensure that return visitors find something new each time they look us up.

One area we are currently revamping is our archive. It is not possible to keep everything on the top level of the site for long, and with a fairly high turnover of material, articles and reviews can soon disappear from the navigation column. They remain accessible on the site, however, as do all the news releases.

If you are new to the site and wonder what you have missed, or remember seeing an article a couple of months ago that you would like to find again, the process should now be easier. We have abandoned the original method of archiving past issues by month (more of a convenience to us than a service to readers, we realised) in favour of a categorised system. We hope this will prove more useful – as ever, let us know what you think. The Archive can be accessed by clicking the Archive link in the navigation column.

The Royal National Mod figures large this month. The centenary Mod returns to its birth place in Oban, and we will be marking the occasion with a variety of articles, beginning with Donnie Munro’s survey of the state of Gaelic language and culture, and Arthur Cormack’s recollections of taking part in Gaeldom’s premiere competition.

Dave Smith’s monthly cartoon takes a mischievous slant on the ongoing debate over the Highland Festival (see last month’s editorial), an issue on which there will be undoubtedly be more to come. Robert Davidson describes the genesis of the oratorio ‘Dunbeath Water’, set for a third performance in November in Dunbeath itself, and we look at the behind-the-scenes work of Duncan MacInnes in Skye (ArtsFolk) and Tommy Beavitt in Wester Ross (A Month in the Life). There will be much more to look out for on the site as the month unfolds, including a report on a major new Gaelic novel by Angus Peter Campbell.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor
October 2003