By Greg Booth

If you have access to the Internet, you just got better access to AURI.

AURI's Web site at www.auri.org has been growing rapidly. Visitors can now find information about AURI programs, projects, facilities, staff and clients. For example, the site will contain all issues of AURI's quarterly newspaper, Ag Innovation News. Monthly news briefs from AURI's regional offices are also on-line, as well as information about the Crookston pilot plant, the waste utilization lab, oils lab and meat lab.

"There are also a lot more links" to related Web sites, says Dan Lemke, AURI communications director.

Touch down at AURI and you can jump to AgriSurf, the Minnesota and U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Minnesota Farmers Union, Minnesota Extension Service and many grower associations. The list will be expanded continually, says Corky Miller, AURI's information technology specialist.

"This will be dynamic," Miller says. "It's an efficient and exciting way to serve information. We believe it will save us on phone calls. It will bring in new clients, and they will be better informed to work with us."

Work on AURI's expanded site began after Miller, information systems technician Marie Fournier, and AURI interns Diane Loeslie and Nathan Myrold completed work on the Industrial Agriculture USA site. That site was developed jointly by AURI and Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation last year for AARC -- the USDA center for alternative agriculture research and commercialization.

Ag on line
David Bartholomay, deputy director for planning and development, wants the Web site to identify AURI as the state's leader in value-added agriculture. "The thing that spurred me to do more was a chat with Alan Gerber, of the Minnesota Association of Cooperatives," Bartholomay says. Gerber stressed "how fast agriculture is getting connected and up on the Web."

Bartholomay says the site should improve communication with entrepreneurs, educators, students and the agricultural community. "As we try to improve AURI," says Bartholomay, "the main challenge we face is to get our message out. Ag Innovation News does a great job, but another medium is on-line and Internet activities.

"If we're the leader in value-added agriculture in Minnesota, then we ought to be the site on the Internet where people find this information.

"We're focusing not so much on having thousands and thousands of links, but on quality and relevance ... and being a gateway to value-added agriculture. When you come in through the door, you find an easily navigated Web site with information about AURI and value-added agriculture in Minnesota and the world."

Smart and catchy
Fournier says she tried to strike a balance between making the site informative and attractive. "You don't want to load an informative site with graphic enhancements that slow it down," she says. She wants site visitors to "easily navigate around the site and identify information that's useful to them."