Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 13, No. 537.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.co.uk> (9)
From: Chris Ann Matteo <chrisann@walrus.com> (2)
Subject: (Fwd) Literature and the Internet (fwd)
From: Howard Gaskill <p.h.gaskill@cwcom.net> ( )
Subject: (Fwd) Literature and the Internet
[2] From: "David L. Green" <david@ninch.org> (46)
Subject: FATHOM.COM: A New For-Profit Cultural Heritage Venture
Announced by US & UK Partners
[3] From: Kathlin Smith <ksmith@clir.org> (15)
From: NINCH-ANNOUNCE <david@ninch.org> (10)
Subject: CLIR REPORT: Managing Cultural Assets from a Business
Perspective
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 15:11:08 +0100
From: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.co.uk>
Subject: Literature and the Internet
For those who might be interested, we have just posted
a review of a new book on literature and the Internet.
Stephanie Browner, Stephen Pulsford, and Richard Sears,
'Literature and the Internet: A Guide for Students,
Teachers, and Scholars', London/New York: Garland,
2000, pp.191, ISBN 0815334532
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/browner.htm
--
Dr Roy Johnson | MANTEX Information Design
roy@mantex.co.uk | http://www.mantex.co.uk
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 13:52:47 -0700
From: "David L. Green" <david@ninch.org>
Subject: FATHOM.COM: A New For-Profit Cultural Heritage Venture Announced by US & UK Partners
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
News on Networking Cultural Heritage Resources
from across the Community
April 8, 2000
FATHOM.COM: A New For-Profit Collaborative Venture
Announced by US & UK Partners
"The premier site for knowledge and education on the web"
http://www.fathom.com/pressreleases/04032000.html
Following up on the notice last week about the ambitions of Questia, is this announcement from six transatlantic nonprofit educational and cultural institutions about a new for-profit venture to distribute educational materials to business and individual
users.
David Green
===========
WORLD-RENOWNED ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS PARTNER FOR FIRST TIME TO CREATE INTERACTIVE KNOWLEDGE COMPANY: FATHOM POISED TO REDEFINE SCOPE OF ONLINE LEARNING
Founding Partners: Columbia University, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Cambridge University Press, The British Library, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and The New York Public Library
NEW YORK AND LONDON, April 3, 2000 -- Six of the world's leading
educational and cultural institutions announced today that they will
create Fathom, a new company formed to launch the premier site for
knowledge and education on the web. Fathom will present the best public
content and courses of universities, libraries, and museums on a wide
variety of professional, cultural, and academic subjects. The
consortium's website, Fathom.com, will introduce the first home for
authenticated knowledge on the Internet, serving a worldwide audience of
business and individual users.
Much of Fathom's content has never been available outside of the
participating institutions. Founding partners who will make their
educational and cultural resources available through Fathom include
Columbia University, the London School of Economics and Political
Science, Cambridge University Press, the British Library, the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and The New York Public
Library. Other institutions are expected to join the consortium. During
the year-long development of Fathom, partners have invested invaluable
intellectual assets and substantial financial resources. An experienced
Internet team, headed up by President and CEO Ann Kirschner, Ph.D.,
manages the business, overseen by a distinguished board of directors of
international business executives and by an Academic Council of leading
scholars and researchers.
"Today, most initiatives by educational institutions are focused on
courses," she continued. "Courses are important, and courses for distance
learning will be one of the offerings provided by some partners through
Fathom. But learning is not limited to the classroom, and the many other
types of content provided through Fathom will provide a more complete and
accessible context for knowledge. We believe that Fathom will define the
transformation of the online learning category into a broader interactive
knowledge marketplace," Dr. Kirschner said.
Fathom will include a comprehensive directory of related online courses
offered by universities and cultural institutions, plus textbooks and
other academic titles, specialized periodicals, individual articles and
other publications, CD-ROMs, academic travel, and learning resources.
Users will access online courses through Fathom, with tuition fees,
accreditation, and admission policies set at the discretion of the
offering university or cultural institution.
Central to Fathom will be a wealth of free content usually only available
on university campuses and at leading museums and libraries. This content
will include multimedia lectures, seminars, databases, publications, and
performances. Working directly with the prominent faculty and curators of
these institutions, Fathom will cover a wide range of subjects such as
business, law, economics, social sciences, medicine, computer science and
technology, the arts, journalism, and physics.
Fathom users will explore topics of interest to them professionally and
personally. They will have the opportunity to interact and collaborate
with the leading experts in their field. Fathom's unique architecture
will provide a powerful "search and explore capability" that will allow
users to follow their interests, independently or with expert guidance,
across the widest possible range of subjects.
"Fathom reaffirms the founding principles of the Internet," said Dr.
Kirschner. "By providing global access to these resources, Fathom holds
the promise of knowledge without boundaries and offers a new medium for
the exchange of ideas. It points ahead to a future where the acquisition
and application of knowledge can be independent of economic status, time
constraints, and geographic location. Fathom and its partners are
committed to creating a dynamic home for knowledge."
All Fathom original content will be authenticated, meaning that the
knowledge will be attributed to the appropriate educational or cultural
institution and its faculty or professional staff. Fathom's standards of
academic and editorial integrity will be monitored by the Fathom Academic
Council, a panel of selected senior faculty and curators from
participating institutions, which will be chaired by Jonathan Cole,
Ph.D., Provost and Dean of Faculties, Columbia University.
Examples of Fathom content currently in development include:
* An oral history research project that includes 7,000 in-depth personal
interviews, conducted over 50 years, with leaders from business,
politics, and the arts, including, Frank Lloyd Wright, Dorothy Parker,
Nikita Khrushchev, and Jimmy Stewart (from Columbia University);
* Excerpts from the field journals of a preeminent anthropologist of the
20th century, William Duncan Strong (1899-1962) (from the Smithsonian
Institution's National Anthropological Archives at the National Museum
of Natural History);
* An overview of the provocative new science of astrobiology, which
brings together molecular life sciences, space exploration, planetary
science and the search for extraterrestrials, by astronomer and editor
Dr. Simon Mitton (from Cambridge University Press);
* A talk on "The Weightless Economy," the shift from a world of
manufacturing to a world of weightless services, by economist Professor
Danny Quah (from the London School of Economics and Political Science);
* Multimedia presentations that bring to life treasured objects, from
the Magna Carta to the Lindisfarne Gospels (from the British Library);
* A collection of over 54,000 photographic views of New York City that
mark the development of the city, its architectural achievements,
transportation system, and ethnic and cultural diversity (from The New
York Public Library).
Developed by top universities, Fathom will be the leading online
destination for high-quality knowledge and education, a rapidly growing
marketplace.
Significant growth in online education is expected over the next few
years. According to IDC, the size of the U.S. market for distance
learning is already $2 billion and is projected to be $6 billion in 2002
and $9 billion by 2003, a growing component of the $750 billion higher
education market in the U.S. alone. Enrollment in online programs is
expected to increase at an annual rate of 30-35 percent.
"The fit between the Fathom business model, the vast intellectual capital
of the founding partners, and the talented management team in place at
Fathom is exactly what you want to see when forging a vibrant new space
on the Internet," said Michael M. Crow, Ph.D., Columbia University
Executive Vice Provost. "We see an enormous need developing for this new
interactive knowledge category. Fathom will meet that need with a
combination of the technology we have developed and the best possible
content provided by our distinguished partners."
In addition to Dr. Crow and Dr. Kirschner, Fathom's international board
of directors will include former chairman of Goldman Sachs Stephen
Friedman, commissioner of the National Basketball Association David
Stern, chairman of Enterprise LSE and former director of Shell
International Keith Mackrell, and chairman and CEO of MBNA Corporation
Alfred Lerner.
"Fathom embraces the principles upon which the great learning
institutions of the world were founded-to create a community where ideas
flourish, to stimulate intellectual curiosity, and to aid in professional
development. Fathom will harness the power of the Internet to enhance the
learning experience while upholding the highest professional and
scholarly standards," Dr. Kirschner said.
Columbia University - London School of Economics and Political Science -
Cambridge University Press - The British Library - Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of Natural History - The New York Public
Library
==============================================================
NINCH-Anounce is an announcement listserv, produced by the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). The subjects of announcements are not the projects of NINCH, unless otherwise noted; neither does NINCH necessarily endorse the subje
cts of announcements. We attempt to credit all re-distributed news and announcements and appreciate reciprocal credit.
For questions, comments or requests to un-subscribe, contact the editor:
<mailto:david@ninch.org>
==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at <http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.
==============================================================
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 00 15:47:28 -0700
From: Kathlin Smith <ksmith@clir.org>
Report Describes Risk-Assessment Model for Managing Cultural Assets
Washington, D.C.-The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR),
in cooperation with the Library of Congress (LC), has published Managing
Cultural Assets from a Business Perspective, by Laura Price, of KPMG
LLP, and Abby Smith, of CLIR. The report describes how LC developed and
implemented a plan for greater accountability over its collections.
Libraries acquire their collections to meet the needs of their present
and future users. The collections, and the services that make them
accessible, are essential to fulfilling the library's mission. Most
libraries have focused more on the costs of acquiring and maintaining
collections than on their potential as assets that are vital to
institutional productivity.
This report presents a model for the management of library and archival
collections that defines collections as core assets and seeks to make
them maximally productive while controlling risks to their integrity. The
model is not based on the monetary value of library holdings. Instead, it
focuses on business risk and proposes a framework of controls to minimize
the risks that threaten the viability of those assets. It is not always
evident which investments in collection development, preservation, and
security will best serve the collections at a given time. With this
model, managers can identify priorities for institutional investments in
collections and make more compelling budget justifications for necessary
resources, because the relationship between the library's assets and its
mission work is made explicit to financial decision makers.
The fact that the language of this model comes from business, and
accounting in particular, is indicative of the new environment in which
all cultural institutions find themselves-one in which business
increasingly sets standards for operations and accountability. To obtain
the necessary resources for mission work, library managers must be able
to express and justify their needs in terms familiar to financial
officers and funding organizations-in terms of business risk.
The risk-assessment methodology described in the report has its origins
in the efforts of the Library of Congress to better manage its finances
and strengthen its core business. Developed to be used in a working
national library, the methodology is now an integral part of LC's annual
audit. However, the fundamental problems that Library staff faced as they
developed the first-ever model to "account" for the well-being of
heritage assets are the same as those facing any library-public, private,
multimedia, or single-format.
The report was developed with the cooperation of the Library of Congress
through a partnership between the Council on Library and Information
Resources and KPMG LLP, an international audit and business advisory
firm. The Public Services-Assurance Practice of KPMG LLP developed the
business risk model for the Library of Congress and co-wrote the report
with CLIR.
Managing Cultural Assets from a Business Perspective is available from
the Council on Library and Information Resources for $15 prepaid,
including postage and handling. Checks should be made payable to CLIR and
mailed to CLIR Publication Orders, 1755 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite
500, Washington, D.C., 20036-2124. Credit card orders may be placed by
calling CLIR at 202-939-4750, sending a fax to 202-939-4765, or sending
e-mail to mailto:info@clir.org. The full text is also available on CLIR's
Web site, http://www.clir.org.
The Council on Library and Information Resources works in partnership
with libraries, archives, and other information providers to advocate
collaborative approaches to preserving the nation's intellectual heritage
and strengthening the many components of its information system. It works
to support institutions as they integrate audiovisual and digital
resources and services into their well-established, print-based
environments.
==============================================================
NINCH-Announce is an announcement listserv, produced by the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). The subjects of announcements are not the projects of NINCH, unless otherwise noted; neither does NINCH necessarily endorse the subj
ects of announcements. We attempt to credit all re-distributed news and announcements and appreciate reciprocal credit.
For questions, comments or requests to un-subscribe, contact the editor:
<mailto:david@ninch.org>
==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at <http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.
==============================================================
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