The American Council of Learned Societies, under the direction of its president, John D'Arms, and in conjunction with the AHA, the Middle Eastern Studies Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Society for the History of Technology, has launched an electronic publishing initiative for scholarly monographs in history, the HistorE Book Project.

The ACLS received a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to sponsor this initiative, as already reported in the September 1999 Perspectives.

The initiative seeks to demonstrate the intellectual potential for historians of new technologies, by publishing electronically monographs of the highest quality.

Ronald G. Musto and Eileen Gardner have been appointed as project directors and they will work with Miriam Hauss, who will act as liaison for the AHA. They are now seeking to identify prospective authors and titles for this project.

In the first phase, 500 backlist monographs in history—books that remain vital to scholars and advanced students and are frequently cited in the literature, but are not widely available—will be converted to an electronic format.

Simultaneously, authors will be enlisted for the second phase of the project—the publication of 85 completely new electronic monographs that offer both author and reader an approach to history that goes beyond merely transforming printed books to electronic versions.

This series of electronic books in history is designed to be distributed through libraries at first, but will eventually make possible publication in a wide variety of electronic formats.

The ACLS and the AHA invite scholars to submit suggestions for the backlist titles for the first phase as well as proposals for original works for the second phase.

Suggestions may be sent to Miriam Hauss at mhauss@historians.org, or directly to the ACLS project directors, egardiner@acls.org or rgmusto@acls.org.

Authors of proposed frontlist projects can also contact the participating university presses (Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, University of Michigan, New York University, Oxford, and Rutgers) directly.

Miriam Hauss may also be reached by mail addressed to AHA, 400 A St., SE, Washington, DC, 20003-3889. Fax (202) 544-8307.