With a vast bibliography and repository of published and unpublished literature and media, an online outlet for publication, and a collaborative workspace built on the HUBzero platform for digital scholarship, HABRI Central will be the place to go for human-animal bond research and collaboration when it launches in 2012.
While there have been a number of important previous initiatives, especially in the area of building bibliographies, HABRI Central represents a uniquely ambitious attempt to bring together the research that underpins the scientific study of the human-animal bond. This has been recognized by the community as an important but challenging task because: the literature comes from so many disciplines (psychology, nursing, veterinary medicine, epidemiology, etc.); important information is produced outside as well as inside the academy (e.g., by animal-assisted therapy and welfare organizations and by veterinary practitioners); and data is of such varying quality, ranging from anecdotal to evidence-based.
Thanks to the generous support of the HABRI Foundation, HABRI Central will be free-of-charge to all users at launch
