ACLS History E-Book Project Right on Schedule

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) History E-Book Project, which launched in 1999, is making long strides toward it goal of mounting a combination of classic history texts and new, more experimental titles. The latter are called "born digital," i.e., they were created specifically as electronic works that incorporate multimedia such as video and audio, Internet links, architectural graphics, and other extras outside of print. Though the initial concept of the project was to supply history texts to graduate- and postgraduate-level students and scholars, Ginny Wiehardt, the project's managing editor of library relations, told LJ that several community colleges and even high schools have bought in.

To date, the project has mounted 500 backlist and 85 frontlist titles. To gather the resources, Project Director Ronald G. Musto told LJ that ACLS partnered with ten university presses for the frontlist titles and hundreds of publishers and authors for the backlist items. To "attract the best projects," Musto said the program is "spreading out to include institutes and libraries with publishing programs."

The project addresses a reality that many in academe and academic publishing have tiptoed around in recent years: the monograph, long the staple of scholarly communication, lies gasping on its deathbed. A lengthy text by a single author cannot be sustained financially by publishers and is not being used by researchers, professors, or students. The tracking by ACLS of the use of its electronic texts shows that chapters are viewed but rarely does a whole title get read. "Readers are taking slices of information," Musto says. The frontlist titles that were "electronically conceptualized" might be the new model that replaces the monograph.

The business model ACLS has adapted makes subscriptions to the project highly affordable, hence the interest by community colleges and high schools that can now gain access to several hundred texts for as little as $300 annually, depending on the facility's size (large colleges pay up to $1300). For their annual dues, subscribers receive multiuser, cross-searchable access 24/7.

Participating presses include Oxford University, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and Rutgers. Learned societies such as the African Studies Association, American Historical Association, Middle East Studies Association, and Society for the History of Technology are also supplying content.

Musto insists that while electronic texts have made progress in gaining acceptance in recent years, a stigma remains. Some larger presses still are reluctant to become involved with an e-publishing project for numerous reasons. Smaller presses have proven to be more flexible and eager to participate. But advances are being made. One step toward equal acceptance of print and electronic titles rests in reviewing, and Musto says that professional review media are appraising the two formats as equals and not ghettoizing digital texts.

The project also is stressing fair use, both with its authors in referencing other resources and to its users. "Scholars must exercise their fair use privileges," insists Musto, "otherwise [those privileges will] be taken away."

To date, the project has attracted 140 library subscribers, including consortia, and hopes are the number will bump up to 200 by June 2004. It will take between 600 and 800 customers to make the project sustainable.