Aug. 10, 2000


Fathom Adds Chicago, Rand, Woods Hole, AFI

Four of the world's pre-eminent educational, research, and cultural institutions have joined Fathom, a unique knowledge and education site to be launched later this year. The University of Chicago, American Film Institute (AFI), RAND, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have joined Fathom's six original institutions to provide an unparalleled array of intellectual resources online. At Fathom, the new institutions can showcase a wide variety of their prized content, ranging from images of new forms of marine life and the wreck of the TITANIC (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), to the first-ever chemical analysis of rocks from Mars (University of Chicago), master seminars by cinema legends on the filmmaking process (American Film Institute), and ground-breaking reports on education reform (RAND).

Fathom will offer individual and business users unprecedented opportunities for knowledge discovery through courses, information, and learning tools and resources. The union of Columbia University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Cambridge University Press, The British Library, The New York Public Library, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, with four additional academic and cultural leaders, illustrates Fathom's prominent leadership role in shaping a new e-knowledge marketplace.

"The addition of these prestigious institutions reinforces Fathom's leadership in the e-knowledge sector," stated Ann Kirschner, Ph.D., Fathom's Chief Executive Officer. "Fathom's offerings through content, courses, and e-commerce will create a vibrant home for intellectual enrichment and development online. With 10 of the world's most respected institutions as key members of the enterprise, Fathom is building a one-of-a-kind, international brand for knowledge and education on the Internet."

Columbia Jonathan R. Cole said of the new members, "The essence of Fathom is high quality content. With the inclusion of the University of Chicago, which is truly one of the most distinguished educational institutions in the world, and three world-renowned cultural and scientific organizations, RAND, AFI, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Fathom takes another giant step toward its goal of opening up the world of knowledge to those who seek it."

Fathom will work with the leading faculty, researchers, and curators of partner institutions to develop original content on a diverse range of subjects. All Fathom content will meet exemplary quality standards that are the hallmarks of the participating institutions and will be authenticated, meaning that the knowledge will be attributed to the appropriate academic or cultural institution and its faculty or research staff. An advisory board made up of scholars selected from Fathom's members and chaired by Provost Cole. Content will include multimedia lectures, seminars, databases, publications, and performances.

Through Fathom's content, faculty and staff from participating institutions will extend their work to an international online audience of knowledge seekers. "The University of Chicago has, since its founding, understood its obligation to make the discoveries of its faculty available beyond the academic world," said Robert Zimmer, the Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor of Mathematics and the Deputy Provost of the university. "We are partnering with Fathom because we believe it will help our faculty to share their work efficiently with sophisticated audiences wherever they may be."

In the context of knowledge acquisition and directly complementing its free content, Fathom will offer e-commerce, with products ranging from textbooks and CD-ROMs to journals and academic travel opportunities, as well as a comprehensive directory of related online courses. Users will request enrollment in online courses through Fathom, with tuition fees, accreditation, and admission policies set at the discretion of the offering university or cultural institution.

Fathom's new institutions are:

  • University of Chicago - The University of Chicago's resources include its faculty's world-renowned work in sociology and economics, and the sciences and humanities, including material produced by many of the 71 Nobel Prize recipients who have taught or studied there. The first three Americans to win the Nobel Prize in Physics were all university faculty members. In the last 20 years, Chicago's faculty has been honored with the Nobel Prize eight more times-three times in physics and five times in economics. Discoveries made by these scholars and their colleagues include carbon-14 dating; discovery of the atmosphere's Jet Stream and REM sleep; the first controlled, nuclear chain reaction; the mathematical foundations of genetic evolution and the study of black holes; establishment of the first blood bank and proof that chromosomal defects can lead to cancer; and the nation's first living-donor liver transplant. In addition, the University of Chicago created the fields of law and economics and of urban sociology, has the second-oldest graduate school of business in the nation, and was the first to offer a Ph.D. and a mid-career program for business executives.

    • Content at the University of Chicago includes reports on the first successful live-donor liver transplant done in the U.S.; supercomputer simulations of exploding stars; a comprehensive database of French language and literature; video, images and descriptions of several newly discovered species of dinosaurs; film of the recently discovered details of the flow of granular materials; reports of its innovative cultural policy program; and a database of U.S. securities prices from 1925 to the present.


  • American Film Institute (AFI) - The American Film Institute is the nation's preeminent arts organization dedicated to advancing and preserving the art of the moving image. Since 1967, AFI has served as America's voice for film, television, video and the digital arts, with innovative programs in education, training, exhibition, preservation and new technology.

    • Content at AFI includes: interviews with filmmakers; master seminars with the world's greatest cinema artists; definitive bibliographic records of American feature films from the AFI Catalog; articles from the highly regarded journal American Film expanded with video, text, and graphic elements. AFI will enrich users' understanding of film history as well as cutting-edge contemporary craft and practice of the emerging digital arts.


  • RAND - A world-renowned non-profit institution that helps improve policy and decision- making through research and analysis, RAND's agenda focuses on education and training, health care, criminal and civil justice, labor and population, science and technology, national defense, international relations, and regional studies. RAND's vast archives offer more than 50 years of ground-breaking research.

    • Content at RAND includes: research on education reform and its impact on test scores; the first-ever study to detail all federally funded R&D activities in the states; and the long-term implications of early childhood intervention programs.


  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution -The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is the largest independent marine research, engineering, and graduate education organization in the United States, conducting some 350 projects around the world each year from the equator to the poles, from climate studies and coastal processes to seafloor evolution. Home to many of ocean sciences' leading researchers, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution operates state-of-the-art shore based laboratories, a global fleet of research vessels, and a number of one-of-a-kind national facilities.

    Its unique instruments and exploration vehicles range from a high-precision carbon-14 dating lab to the deep-diving submersible ALVIN and remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles. The graduate education program run jointly with MIT is considered one of the best in the nation. Among its most famous discoveries are new life forms at deep-sea vents and the wreck of the TITANIC.

    • Content at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution includes: an animated "flight" along the Great Ocean Conveyor of ocean currents that flow on a 1,000-year journey through all the world's oceans; rare images of the extraordinary transparent and bioluminescent squids, jellies, and other creatures that populate the deep open oceans; highest quality video from the seafloor of shipwrecks; and in-depth reports on current ocean expeditions by scientific pioneers who are using state-of-the-art technology.