ACLS History eBook Project and Rutgers U. Press Introduce “Breakthrough” Ebooks

Since its launch in 1999, the HEB has been making steady progress pioneering the digital future of the history monograph and, this week, American Council of Learned Society’s History E-Book Project (HEB) and Rutgers University Press (RUP) announced the “cooperative publication” of two innovative electronic titles that offer strong examples into the power of technology to expand traditional scholarly monographs. Through HEB, Rutgers has issued e-versions, compete with sound and video, of Fred Nadis’ Wonder Shows: Science, Religion, and Magic on the American Stage, and Krystyn Moon’s Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music, 1850s-1920s. HEB project directors Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto said the books represent a “breakthrough,” and demonstrate how “a university press, working collaboratively can incorporate even the most robust electronic features into a standard and predictable workflow.”

That collaboration involved not only staff at Rutgers but also the Scholarly Publishing Office at the University of Michigan Library, which collaborated on the R&D for these titles. Of note, Nadis’ book incorporates several short films, while Moon’s uses a series of complete musical performances that accompany the sheet music and analysis. Both titles include standard HEB features such as complete cross-searchability, XML text and annotation, enhanced image handling, related historiography, and online reviews that create an interoperable network of scholarship and its analysis. “Readers can now experience our books with imaginative and captivating enhancements we once never thought possible,” said RUP director Marlie Wasserman. The History E-Book Project, which launched in September 2002, adds approximately 250 books annually to its collection. ACLS collaborates in this initiative with eight Learned Societies and nearly 75 university presses, funded initially by a $3-million, five-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. The Project achieved self-sustainability in the spring of 2005.

Library Journal Academic Newswire, July 27, 2006