Aeiou Encyclopedia

Infobox Website
name = AEIOU



caption =
url = [http://www.aeiou.at www.aeiou.at]
commercial = no
type = Online database of Austrian culture
language = de icon en icon
registration =
owner = Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur (BMBWK) (Austria Ministry for Education, Science and Culture)
author = Elisabeth Wetsch (web design)
launch date =
current status = Active
revenue =

AEIOU (www.aeiou.at) is a free online collection of reference works in both German and English about Austria-related topics.

Background

The AEIOU project was launched in 1996 by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research as part of Austria's millennial celebrations. The first mention of the name "Ostarrîchi", or Austria was in the year 996. The content was based on the German-language "Österreich-Lexikon", first published in a printed version in 1995. Additional material was acquired, including more images and also audio and video files, and "AEIOU" soon grew into a multimedia information system.

The title "AEIOU"—the "Annotatable Electronic Interactive Oesterreich Universal Information System"—is an allusion to the old Habsburg motto, A.E.I.O.U.. Suggestions for the improvements to articles can be made by reader; however, the "aeiou Encyclopedia" is not a wiki.

With an ever-increasing number of Austrian classrooms having Internet access, the encyclopedia is today widely used by Austrian students at both high school and university levels and, generally, by people all over the world interested in Austria's history and culture. In the spring of 2005, Ministry headed by Elisabeth Gehrer decided, for pecuniary reasons, to shut down Internet access to the encyclopedia effective April 1. After strong protest the Ministry reversed its previous decision, and access was restored. There have been recent talks and negotiations on how in the future the encyclopedia could be regularly updated.

See also

* List of online encyclopedias

External links

* [http://www.aeiou.at/;internal&action=_setlanguage.action?LANGUAGE=en The "AEIOU" homepage] | [http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.a Table of Contents] | [http://www.aeiou.at/;internal&action=search.action Search]
* [http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou/project.htm The genesis of the project]
* [http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.cp_right Copyright information]