1986-1994 HUManities BULletin Board

"However, due to the substantial increase in electronic resources, gopher sites,
world-wide-web pages, and software to aid the accessing and searching of the
Internet, HUMBUL began to look like a bit of a dinosaur. This, coupled with the
fact that USERBUL was no longer operational with the installation of new
software at Oxford University, has meant that the policy of maintaining such a
large resource has had to be reviewed. Before considering the possibility of
moving HUMBUL to a gopher site I researched the resources available to
academics through the Internet. It was clear that whereas in the mid-eighties
HUMBUL was a good central point for most scholars, now, with the advent of WWW, Gopher, VERONICA, etc, the gap that needed to be filled all those years ago was
no longer there. Consequently, the decision has been taken to close down HUMBUL
as of July, 1994."

1994-1999 Humbul Gateway

"This is a proposal to develop the Humanities Hub of the Resource Discovery Network. The lead bidder is Oxford University (through the Oxford University Computing Services). The proposed name of the Humanities Hub, HumBul, reflects the fact that Oxford University has hosted and supported the development of a subject-based internet gateway since 1991. From 1991-1994 HumBul was funded through the Office for Humanities Communication. From 1994 to the present it has been supported and further developed through the Humanities Computing Unit. The name of HumBul has a respected and long-standing reputation within the humanities community. Whilst the Humanities Hub will take its name from HumBul it is proposed to redevelop entirely the existing HumBul gateway to ensure that it conforms to the appropriate standards, particularly concerning interoperability with the other RDN Hubs and associated services, and to fulfil the overall aims of the RDN as well as to provide a unique resource-discovery service for the humanities community."