Established: 1993. Membership: 180,000+. Annual dues: None.

Statement of Purpose: H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences OnLine is an international consortium of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous potential of the Internet and World Wide Web in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. H-Net is committed to pioneering the use of new communication technology to facilitate the free exchange of academic ideas and scholarly resources. Among H-Net’s most important activities is its sponsorship of over 180 free, discussion networks (“lists”), which are edited by scholars worldwide (in North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific) making H-Net the world’s largest distributor of academic discussion networks. The goals of H-Net lists are to enable scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new approaches, methods, and tools of analysis; to share information on electronic databases; and to test new ideas and share comments on the literature in their fields. These networks provide a timely distribution of announcements, scholarly book reviews, teaching materials, and other breaking news in the discipline. H-Net also offers such services as a weekly job guide and an academic announcements bulletin board. Logs of all messages are permanently saved and can be easily searched from the H-Net website.

Publications: 180+ electronic discussion networks (http://www.h-net.org/lists/); H-Net Reviews (http://www.h-net.org/reviews/); H-Net's Job Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences (http://www.h-net.org/jobs/); H-Announce academic announcements portal (http://www.h-net.org/announce/)