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Two months after its launch, Columbia Earthscape: The On-line Resource on the Global Environment has been awarded the Best New Internet-Based Electronic Product, Math /Science for 1999 by the Association of American Publishers, Inc., (AAP), Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division. This is the second time an Internet-based electronic product or on-line publication produced under the collaboration of Columbia University and Columbia University Press has been recognized by the AAP.
Earthscape follows a model set by its predecessor CIAO, Columbia International Affairs Online , the first multi-disciplinary on-line venture of its kind in the field of International Affairs, which received the AAP Best New Internet-Based Electronic Product in the Social Sciences/Humanities following its launch two years ago.
As Director of the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia (EPIC), and Senior Executive Editor in charge of the electronic publishing program at Columbia University Press, Kate Wittenberg is an outspoken advocate of scholarly publishing in digital form. "I knew that the new technology was perhaps our last and only hope of reviving certain areas of academic publishing," said Wittenberg. "The success of CIAO and the recognition that Earthscape is receiving confirm that not only can electronic publishing fill the void among scholars, but it also has a far reaching potential in disseminating information to a lay audience of diverse interests."
William B. Strachan, Director of Columbia University Press commented, "Our electronic publishing program aims to answer an immediate need in academic publishing while at the same time allowing us to see what applications these models can have in a broader marketplace. The AAP award validates our mission."
Columbia Earthscape is the product of an award-winning partnership within Columbia. Following the successful launch of CIAO, Columbia University and Columbia University Press created the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia, an umbrella organization linking the editorial strength of Columbia University Press, the technical knowledge of the University's Academic Information Systems (AcIS) and the Libraries' expertise in the collection and organization of information.
"The groundwork for Earthscape was set when we began planning for the Columbia Digital Library, a project that gave us much insight into the viability of on-line resources in academic settings," said Elaine Sloan, vice president for Information Services and University librarian. "One of the outcomes of our commitment to the development of the digital library was the creation of EPIC, an organization committed to the development, dissemination, and evaluation of new kinds of scholarly and educational digital publications such as CIAO and Earthscape."
Developed in collaboration with distinguished scholars and research institutes, Columbia Earthscape creates, selects and links the widest range of Earth-systems resources available on-line including current research, breaking news, policy debates and curriculum models for Earth science teachers on a wide range of topics.
The site currently contains over 70,000 pages of multi-media web content, including full-text books, a quarterly on-line magazine (Earth Affairs), video clips, current journal articles, lectures and seminars, conferences, policy papers and commentary, maps and models, searchable databases, links and live web-casts of crucial conferences and grows at an average of 2,000 pages monthly. Columbia, NASA, MIT, The American Museum of Natural History and ABC News are among sources for Earthscape information. A distinguished editorial advisory board guides the Columbia Earthscape selections and editorial-review process.
Columbia Earthscape received initial funding from the Office of the Provost at Columbia as well as two three-year grants: a $590,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Digital Library 2 Program and $200,000 from SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
CIAO contains complete texts of scholarly documents from the world's leading international affairs research centers. It offers a comprehensive collection of original documents focused on emerging strategies and developing approaches to global politics, economics, and security.
The growing list of contributors, now numbering close to 100, includes: Asia/Pacific Research Center, Stanford University; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Centre for International Studies, Oxford University; Foreign Affairs; Foreign Policy; Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations; Stockholm Institute for Peace Research; and The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.
CIAO includes working papers from the most prestigious universities and other research centers in the U.S. and abroad, abstracts and proceedings from selected conferences worldwide, reports of research projects in the U.S. and abroad, abstracts from current journals in international affairs, full texts of books published by Columbia University Press and a calendar of current meetings, conferences, seminars, and research projects.
A third electronic project currently underway is the Guttenberg E-Project dissertation contest that will publish electronic monographs in several "endangered" history fields. The winners of the first annual contest were announced last week at the AHA's annual meeting and winning dissertations (six for 1999) will be published as electronic titles. The project is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is under development in conjunction with the American Historical Association (AHA).
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