The International Affairs Contact Net: A directory of international affairs organizations worldwide. Its contents can be searched by organization name, location, subject, type, and resource offerings In addition, this service provides a limited-area, full text web search of websites maintained by organizations listed in the directory.

Access International Education: A survey of international education opportunities for underrepresented populations. Targeted at international education administrators, this resource aims to increase diversity in international education by facilitating cooperation, benchmarking, comparative research and identification of best practices nationally and internationally.

Project GIANT is an initiative of the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, funded by the Ford Foundation.

History
In July 1998, the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) at the University of Pittsburgh received a grant from The Ford Foundation in support of consolidating and converting the former ACCESS databases of organizations and specialists in international affairs and making them available on-line on the Internet.

The project has three principal goals:

• Broaden and equalize access to international affairs information
  
  
• Increase visibility of international affairs organizations and experts outside advanced industrialized countries
  
  
• Foster collaborative activities, nationally and internationally

In pursuing these goals, the project benefits individuals and organizations (U.S. based or international) with professional or academic interests in international and global affairs, including university scholars & students, journalists, policy makers, non-university researchers, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and K-12 educators or their equivalents.

Project GIANT
To date, the project staff have succeeded in consolidating four of ACCESS’ databases into a single resource that serves as the structure for the Global Information Access NeT (GIANT). The preliminary version of this database is now on-line and can be found at http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/giant/

Over 3000 organizations are listed in the database with contact specifics, projected audience, internship opportunities, memberships, subject focus, and details about key experts. Roughly 50% of those organizations listed are based in the United States.

The data is heavily cross-indexed, making it possible to conduct searches in a variety of ways, notably by organization name, geographic region, subject, and type. Furthermore, GIANT offers a limited-scope web search, allowing users to search the full text of webpages created by the organizations listed in the GIANT database. In this manner, users can quickly identify relevant web-based material as it occurs in organizations’ electronic publications.

UCIS at the University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh has a deep commitment to international education and linkages, exemplified by the existence of its University Center for International Studies (UCIS).

Through UCIS, the University of Pittsburgh is one of only a handful of American universities to host five National Resource Centers under the Title VI Higher Education Act, acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Education as Centers of Excellence in their fields. These centers include the:

• Asian Studies Program, with special focus on East Asia
  
  
• Center for Latin American Studies
  
  
• Center for Russian and East European Studies
  
  
• Center for West European Studies
  
  
• International Business Center (with the Katz Graduate School of Business)
  
  

In addition, UCIS jointly sponsors centers in certain professional schools at the University. These include the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies (with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs), the Institute for International Studies in Education (with the School of Education), and the Center for International Legal Education (with the School of Law).

Together, these centers serve as focal points for over six hundred faculty throughout the University, facilitating research and teaching on international topics. In addition, these centers have established countless linkages with institutions around the world, thereby providing a multitude of contacts for developing the database.

Apart from the strong substantive expertise in international affairs and area studies, the University of Pittsburgh has also been a forerunner in utilizing Internet technology for the international affairs community. It is the host of two major international affairs-related Virtual Libraries on the World Wide Web. The University, through its Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), spawned the IAN Web, the first web-based directory of international affairs organizations. It did so in mid-1994, when the World Wide Web just entered the realm of public awareness. For years, the IAN Web provided valuable information to thousands of international affairs specialists from around the world. Likewise, the University houses two of the early entrants in the CERN Virtual Library system: REESWeb, the Virtual Library for Russian and East European Studies, and the West European Studies Virtual Library.

Through the project staff’s efforts, UCIS has acquired two high-capacity web servers specifically dedicated to international studies projects. Developing and housing UCIS’ Internet resources in one place provides a number of synergies:

• Joint hosting maximizes the exposure of the IA Database to users of the other Virtual Libraries.
  
  
• Tight integration allows cross-links from organizations listed both in the database and in the Virtual Libraries.
  
  

An information clearinghouse, ACCESS: An International Information Source spent twelve years identifying organizations, academic centers and associated specialists around the world involved in international peace and security, and made this information readily available in print and customized formats. In the process, ACCESS provided invaluable services to the worldwide academic, non-profit, and governmental sectors. ACCESS ceased operation in 1997.