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posted 06/01/01

Geological Society of America and Partners Planning New Electronic Journal Aggregation
Publications to be Distributed through Columbia University Press' Earthscape

The Geological Society of America (GSA), which publishes two of the world's leading geoscience journals, today announced it is exploring a collaboration with EPIC (the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia) and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) to launch a new electronic aggregation of major geoscience journals. The proposed collaboration would offer full texts of earth science society journals to library subscribers on the web on a shared platform in order to reduce development costs, expand readership and functionality, and ensure competitive, library--friendly prices.

The journals would be hosted and distributed on the Internet as part of Columbia Earthscape, an award-winning web resource for the earth sciences. Earthscape has been widely hailed for its innovative integration of the research, teaching and public policy dimensions of earth sciences. GSA's journals and those of other earth science societies would be available as a section of Earthscape, with the content of the journals fully searchable as part of the larger publication. Columbia Earthscape was developed by EPIC, a joint program of the Columbia University Press, Columbia University Libraries, and Columbia University Computing Center.

"This collaboration is about broad, economical, and robust access to high-quality research," said Mary Lou Zoback, President of GSA. "Working together, we have a means of obtaining expanded reach and impact for GSA and other earth science journals, and for providing easy access for earth scientists and students around the globe. It's a groundbreaking alliance for GSA, assembling premier content providers, a proven infrastructure and production expertise, and recognition from the library community."

"Columbia University's EPIC program and Columbia Earthscape are dedicated to delivering quality, innovation, and value to scholarly communities and libraries," said Kate Wittenberg, Director of EPIC and Senior Executive Editor, Columbia University Press. "We are eager to serve the broader information needs of current and future Earthscape users with our in-place electronic publishing infrastructure while building economies of scale that benefit all the stakeholders."

The Geological Society of America has approximately 17,000 members whose interests span a broad range of the earth sciences. It publishes the journals Geology and GSA Bulletin. The research foci of GSA journals is in the general area of geosciences. Additionally, GSA will be contacting its 24 Associated Societies for their ideas and collaboration on this project. Those societies publish journals in the specialty areas of sedimentology, hydrology, seismology, engineering and environmental geosciences, paleontology, mineralogy, economic geology, geochemistry and geological education. Complete lists of GSA Associated Societies and their publications can be found at www.geosociety.org.

SPARC, which will aid in the marketing of the journals aggregation, is an alliance of worldwide research institutions, libraries and library organizations working to create a more competitive scientific communications marketplace. SPARC efforts support development of alternatives to high-priced commercial scientific journals and other activities. Columbia Earthscape is a SPARC publishing partner and a recipient of a SPARC Scientific Communities grant. SPARC is also involved in development of BioOne, an electronic aggregation of bioscience research journals from scientific societies.

Web sites:
GSA: www.geosociety.org
Columbia Earthscape: www.earthscape.org
SPARC: www.arl.org/sparc (will open in new window)
BioOne: www.BioOne.org

Contacts:
Ann Cairns, Director of Strategic Communication and Marketing, GSA
  acairns@geosociety.org
Peg Lehr, Chief Operating Officer/Director of Publications, GSA
  plehr@geosociety.org
Alison Buckholtz, Assistant Director, Communications, SPARC
  alison@arl.org

About The Earth Institute
The Earth Institute at Columbia University is the world's leading academic center for the integrated study of Earth, its environment and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence in the core disciplines — earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and health sciences — and stresses cross-disciplinary approaches to complex problems. Through research, training and global partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world's poor. For more information, visit www.earth.columbia.edu.