FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., a new publisher of electronic works in the humanities, is proud to announce its list of charter customers: Boston College, California Digital Library (for all ten campuses of the University of California System), Columbia University, Emory University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Penn State University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame, University of Wisconsin, Vassar College, and Yale University.

Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President of Alexander Street Press, says, “These libraries have demonstrated their confidence in our databases and our mission. We have pledged to put the values of librarianship and scholarship back in the center of electronic publishing. Our charter customers have confirmed that we have taken the right course.”

Eileen Lawrence, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, adds, “We saw a need to produce electronic resources that captured the traditional values of publishing. Instead of merely digitizing pages, we are collaborating with scholars and subject specialists, carefully constructing collections, then indexing very deeply. The result is a database that answers questions in ways never before possible. Our charter customers have chosen our products for these values.”

Alexander Street’s charter customers have purchased one or more of the following electronic databases: North American Women’s Letters and Diaries, Colonial-1950; American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; Early American Encounters: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment, 1534-1924; American Film Scripts Online.

North American Women’s Letters and Diaries, Colonial-1950 is the largest electronic collection of women’s diaries and correspondence ever assembled. The collection includes more than 100,000 pages of published letters and diaries from Colonial times to 1950, plus 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts, in electronic format for the first time. Drawn from more than 1,000 sources, including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, the writings represent all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, all geographical regions, the famous and the unknown. The diaries provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they ate, what they read, and how they amused themselves. We can see how frequently they attended church, how they viewed their connection to God, and how they prayed. We can explore their relationships with lovers and family and friends.

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together more than 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts in facsimile form, memoirs that provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war, plus. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, seamen, wives, and spies are included. The letters and diaries give both the Northern and the Southern perspectives, as well as the views of foreign observers. Detailed firsthand descriptions of historical characters and events, glimpses of daily life in the army, anecdotes about key events and personages, and accounts of sufferings at home, written for private consumption, provide an immediacy and a richness that are unmatched in public sources. (First release spring 2001.)

Exploration Narratives: Encounters with the New World, 1534-1924 presents the exploration of the New World in tremendous depth, and with a vast collection of supporting material that includes prints, drawings, paintings, maps, bibliographies, letters, photographs, and original facsimile pages. The database includes more than 100,000 pages of diverse narratives from the 16th century to the early 20th century and covers all regions of North America. Contents include important works by Thwaites’s, including all 73 volumes of the Jesuit Relations and all 32 volumes of Early Western Travels, as well as Lewis and Clark’s papers, Hakluyt materials, rare captivity narratives, travel and war narratives, letters, journals, memoirs, and more. (First release summer 2001.)

American Film Scripts Online is the largest, most highly structured, and best indexed electronic archive of American films available. It is a bibliographic and biographical database of directors, scriptwriters, and the full text of the movies themselves. Developed for scholarship in drama, literature, popular culture, history, sociology, film studies, anthropology, race relations, ethnic studies, and more, American Film Scripts Online enables a kind of text analysis never before possible. Reaching back to the earliest films and following through to the present, the database presents the medium’s reflection of American attitudes and life. Unlike scattered resources currently found on the Web, American Film Scripts Online is authoritative, based on agreements with the various studios and a major film research institute. (First release summer 2001.)

Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., is an academic publisher of electronic full-text databases in the humanities and social sciences. The company, launched in June 2000 by executives of the former Chadwyck-Healey company, is developing databases in history, women’s studies, sociology, popular culture, film studies, the arts, and more. Alexander Street Press is located in Alexandria, Virginia.

For More Information Contact:

Eileen Lawrence,
Alexander Street Press
Tel: 800-889-5937
Fax: 501-423-7500
Internet: lawrence@alexanderstreet.com