20.232 digital publication of the Chicago Manual of Style

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 232.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 06:18:36 +0100
         From: "Carolyn Guertin" <carolyn.guertin_at_gmail.com>
         Subject: Fwd: Chicago Manual of Style' Marks Its Centennial
With an Online Version

-----Original Message-----
From: Anderson, Noel W
Sent: Mon 10/2/2006 10:12 AM

CHICAGO RULES: In November 1906, a modest little book crept onto the
publishing scene with a mouthful of a title. The Manual of Style:
Being a Compilation of the Typographical Rules in Force at the
University of Chicago Press, to Which Are Appended Specimens of Types
in Use grew out of a style sheet kept in the press's composing room.

Fifteen editions and 100 years later, The Chicago Manual of Style has
established itself as the press's all-time top earner. Its distinctive
dust jacket - an eye-popping orange that calls to mind traffic cones -
brightens the reference shelves of word jockeys across the nation. It
has sold 1.75 million copies over its long lifetime, according to
Ellen Gibson, the press's reference-marketing manager.

As it closes in on its centennial, The Chicago Manual has evolved yet
again, this time for the digital age. Users have clamored to have it
in digital form, Ms. Gibson says. "One of the things we heard over and
over again was 'Can you please make it searchable online?'"

In response the press just released the manual on CD-ROM, with a
price tag of $60, five dollars more than the print volume. An online
edition was set to debut on September 29. Users can sign up for a free
30-day trial. After that, a one-year online subscription costs $25,
with an annual renewal fee of $30. Both digital incarnations reproduce
the 15th edition faithfully, down to the last figure and table.

The press also hopes to build a virtual community around the new
online version, a space in which editors can debate the finer points
of style. The Q&A feature of the manual's current Web site already
gets 100,000 to 150,000 visitors a month, according to the press,
which augurs well for the online edition. "We would love to be up to
50,000 subscribers in a year," says Ms. Gibson. "That's kind of our
dream. But it really depends on what the manual users think of it."

The reference's target audience, too, appears to have adapted to the
digital age. Erin McKean, editor in chief of American dictionaries at
Oxford University Press, says, "It would be very rare to find copy
editors that don't do a considerable amount of their reference work
online." And many users want to be able to search by keyword instead
of using the print version's index and numbered-paragraph system. She
plans to get her hands on the CD-ROM as soon as possible. "I travel a
lot," she says. "I wouldn't be calling people up and saying, I don't
have my CMOS with me, can you look something up?"

Click on the link below to read the rest of this article from the
September 29th Chronicle of Higher Education.

>>> Noel

http://tinyurl.com/lhn7b
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Mr. Noel Anderson 817-235-4339 cell
Humanities Librarian 817-272-7428 office
Univ. Texas at Arlington Library 817-272-3593 fax
noel_at_uta.edu Rm. 311 Central Library
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

-- 
Carolyn Guertin, PhD
Director, eCreate Lab
Department of English
University of Texas at Arlington
203 Carlisle Hall, Box 19035
Arlington, TX
USA 76019-0035
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/academy/carolynguertin/
(Voice): 817.272.2692 (FAX): 817.272.2718