[PDF Version]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Alexander Street Press launched In the First Person: Index to Letters, Diaries, Oral Histories, and Other Personal Narratives—and announced that it would remain free to all users as long as people continue to use it. The database URL is www.inthefirstperson.com.

The announcement met with a flood of accolades from librarians around the U.S. and elsewhere, such as this one from Mildred Franks, reference library at University of Louisville: “We are linking this database from our libraries' Web page. It is a wonderful contribution to scholarship. The product not only makes these materials accessible from one place, but the quality of the indexing and file structure - information on the repositories and collections as well as each item - seems to be expertly done. My compliments. And our thanks for the creative pricing!”

Other universities and organizations made the database available on their library Web sites, including New York University, University of Notre Dame, University of Florida, National Geographic Society, OhioLINK, University of Toledo, Auburn University, Ithaca College, and others. Other responses came from individual around the world who offered to contribute materials to the database, such as a scholar in Australia who offered the memoirs of her various family members living in an isolated part of New South Wales in the early 20th century; and Elliot Kanter, the American history bibliographer at University of California-San Diego, who asked Alexander Street to index his grandfather’s contribution to the 1940s YIVO competition, "Why I left the Old Country and What I Achieved in the U.S." ("Far vos bin ikh avek fun der alter heym un vos hob ikh dergreykht in der nayer heym”).

Today, In the First Person provides in-depth indexing of more than 2,500 collections of oral history from around the world. There are more than 260,000 pages of full-text by over 9,000 individuals from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, juxtaposing the voices of ordinary citizens with those of the well-published and famous. It also contains pointers to over 2,500 audio and video files and 16,000 bibliographic records. With future releases, the index will broaden to identify other first-person content, including letters, diaries, memoirs, spanning 400 years.

“Our goal is meticulously to index all editorially valuable first-person content in English available on the Web around the world, and to provide bibliographic records for all first-person narratives,” explained Eileen Lawrence, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “We believe that In the First Person is the most comprehensive archive of social memory yet created, and we see it as a one-stop starting point for historians, sociologists, genealogists, linguists, and psychologists who want to find, explore, and analyze human experiences.”

“Our announcement of this free database was met with a great deal of excitement on the part of librarians and scholars,” added Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President of Alexander Street. “We share their excitement because this product is the gateway to a growing collection of voices that add color to the human experience.”

More information about In the First Person can be found at www.inthefirstperson.com. Interested librarians can also call 800-889-5937 or email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

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Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., is an academic publisher of electronic full-text databases in the humanities, social sciences, and music. Founded in June 2000, the company publishes collections in history, literature, music, women’s studies, sociology, ethnic and diversity studies, popular culture, film studies, the arts, and other areas. Alexander Street Press is located in Alexandria, Virginia. EDITORS: For additional information on Alexander Street Press and its products, please contact Eileen Lawrence, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, 800-889-5937 ext. 211, email lawrence@alexanderstreet.com, or visit http://alexanderstreet.com.