Kate Wittenberg, Editor in Chief, Columbia University Press

During the last several years, many of us in the field of scholarly publishing have been thinking about what it means to be a university press publisher. All of the developments that we have discussed at this conference have made it necessary for those of us in this field to ask some very basic questions: what is our role in the broader scholarly community? How can we continue to publish the kind of high-quality work that has been for years the basis of university press publishing? How can we reconcile the new realities of our economic environment with the goal of publishing the best work being produced, and are there developments that have occurred that can help us in achieving our goals?

I believe that the fundamental role of a university press publisher should not change in this new environment. However, the tools available to us have changed dramatically, and we must make use of this fact. In using these tools responsibly, intelligently, and creatively, we can maintain what is best about our traditional role, and we can also affect positively the way in which scholarship is produced and disseminated. I believe that it is the responsibility of scholarly publishers to use all of our creativity, experience, and skills to find new ways in which we can utilize these tools so that we can continue to play a meaningful role in the process of scholarly communication.

The model we are using to explore these issues at Columbia University Press is Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO), an online publication that was launched in August, 1997. This publication contains a wide range of scholarly materials, including a selection of working papers from a group of 50 academic institutes in the US and abroad, conference proceedings, abstracts from the leading journals in the field, full-text books published by Columbia, a schedule of events, and links to related online sites. The project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is designed to evaluate whether it is possible to provide a cost -effective means for publishing high-quality scholarly material in a particular discipline, and is being produced in collaboration with the Columbia University Libraries and Academic Information System. It will be sold on annual subscription to libraries and other institutions, and it is designed to be self-supporting in three years.

The overarching idea behind the creation of CIAO is that by establishing a venue in which scholars in the field of international affairs can disseminate their best work at a variety of different stages and in several different forms, we are providing the field with a means by which to encourage creative, cutting-edge scholarship that can be made available quickly and widely to a large community of users. In addition, by linking our material to other online sites, we provide scholars and students with a product that is much more valuable as a whole than in individual parts. By creating a means for interaction and response from users, scholars have an opportunity to develop a dialogue that may affect their work as it evolves.

One of the most interesting and educational aspects of this project has been the opportunity to create and shape it with other parts of our university community. It is, thus, a truly collaborative publishing project, incorporating shared responsibilities and skills of the Press, the libraries, the computing center, and the faculty. Staff from the Press and the libraries wrote the grant proposal; the Press provided editorial acquisitions skills, organization and structure of the project, as well as sections of the content; the library^Òs technology staff provided the site design, markup of content, the server, the security system, and technical support; the Press provided marketing and sales staff and infrastructure; and the advisory board of scholars and librarians provided guidance and advice concerning content, organization, pricing structure, and overall direction for the project.

In creating this project, we have been able to join together the traditional work that we do as publishers with the new opportunities created by online technologies. The editorial work of acquiring, shaping, and organizing large amounts of high-quality scholarly content has been what scholarly publishers have done for years. The online format in which we are disseminating this content allows for global accessibility, rapid dissemination and updating, interaction, and the availability of many forms of scholarship in one place. In the focus groups that we conducted during the planning for the project, scholars expressed frustration with the increasing amount of information available to them and the decreasing amount of time in which to locate and organize this material in doing their work. CIAO provides one place where scholars in a discipline can go to access a wide array of the best work being done in their field.

Rather than thinking of technological developments as a means by which we could duplicate print publication in a new form, we are trying to think about how technology can open up new opportunities for the way in which scholarship is created, presented and disseminated. In thinking about how this project might serve as a model for future online publications, the following seem to be issues to consider: is the material needed on a timely basis? Is it scholarship that is not otherwise easily accessible? Is there value in publishing work in the field at various stages of development? Will users welcome the opportunity to access the material in an online format, and are links to other material useful for scholars in this field? Is it valuable for users to access research materials from a variety of locations?

The goals in our evaluation of this project are as follows: to understand how scholars and libraries use online publications in this field; to examine costs throughout the life-cycle of the publication; to test whether scholars receive professional recognition for publication on CIAO; and to analyze resonses and sales results from the subscribing institutions.

In sum, I believe that university presses should continue to publish the best scholarly work being produced, but I do not think that we must necessarily continue to publish this work in its traditional format. New technology, used appropriately, offers the opportunity to provide scholars with the material they need in a more useful form, and it offers scholarly publishers an opportunity to reclaim their role as creative and skilled disseminators of this work.