1. The Gutenberg-e Project Opportunities and Challenges in Publishing Born-Digital Monographs Kate Wittenberg

2. History of Gutenberg-e • Launched in 1999 with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation • American Historical Association selected six dissertations each year and awarded prizes • E-Publishing staff at Columbia worked with authors to create the digital monographs

3. Initial Goals • Enable enhanced forms of historical scholarship and writing • Influence a change in attitudes toward digital publishing in the academy • Contain costs of publishing scholarly books

4. Project Findings • Authors and publishing staff collaborated in creating new models of scholarship and writing • Over the course of the project, attitudes toward digital publications evolved • Time and costs involved in creating these models exceeded expectations

5. New Publishing Model • Authors are active collaborators rather than “lone toilers”in creating their work • Editors and web developers are researchers creating new models rather than staff reacting to completed work • Both learn to think more creatively about the presentation and use of scholarship

6. Questions Raised for both Author and Publisher • Must a scholarly narrative be presented in linear form? • How does one present an “authorial voice” in an interactive publication? • Are images and archives supplementary or the organizing structure in an e-book? • Can new “textbooks” be created by integrating e-books and digital teaching tools?

7. Views of Digital Scholarship in the Academy • Early on, some authors had trouble convincing department chairs of the quality of electronic book content • As project evolved, authors began receiving tenure based on evaluation of the digital book publications • Attitudes changed as the project developed

8. Sustainability Issues • Tremendous potential of digital scholarship can create high costs • Need to agree on what authors can expect in designing their digital work • Enhanced collaboration involves increases in cost and time • Dual business models: open access and subscription

9. Future of E-Books and Scholarly Publishing • Authors are pushing e-books forward--publishers and universities must follow • Next generation will assume their scholarship will be published in digital form • New technologies and e-book publishing protocols will allow costs to be contained • Need for continuing innovation

10. Gutenberg-e www.gutenberg-e.org http://www.humanitiesebook.org/ Kate Wittenberg Kw49@columbia.edu