The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a non‐profit organization founded in 1919. It consists of a federation of 60 national learned societies in the humanities and social sciences. The purpose of the Council is “the advancement of humanistic studies in all fields of learning in the humanities and social sciences and the maintenance and strengthening of relations among national societies devoted to such studies.”
In keeping with the stated purpose of the Council, the two most interesting components of the site are the “Programs of Fellowship and Grants” and the “ACLS Publications” pages. In addition, the ACLS site provides links to other scholarly resources and contains an extensive “More About the ACLS” page, which provides the history, governance, funding, membership, annual meeting, and staffing information.
The “Programs of Fellowship and Grants” lists the available competitions, deadlines, and recipients. These awards are intended for post‐doctoral work; however one does not have to be a member in an ACLS constituent society to apply. The deadlines, unfortunately, were for Fall/Winter 1997 dates, when I looked at the site on January 31, 1998.
The “ACLS Publications” is a complete bibliography of the ACLS Occasional Papers with links to those available online and one issue of the ACLS Newsletter. Some of the online Occasional Papers, as well as the Newsletter, discuss technology and scholarship; all the Occasional Papers focus on teaching and/or scholarship.
The ACLS web site is well organized and easy to navigate, and provides excellent information about the organization. Those interested in this information however are probably a very small group: researchers looking for post‐doctoral fellowships and funding and those scholars interested in scholarship and teaching as a subject of discussion and research.
