Subject: FATHOM.COM: A New For-Profit Cultural Heritage Venture Announced by US & UK Partners
David L. Green (david@ninch.org)
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 13:52:47 -0700
Message-Id: <v04210102b51696edec21@[168.191.22.2]> Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 13:52:47 -0700 To: ninch-announce@cni.org From: "David L. Green" <david@ninch.org> Subject: FATHOM.COM: A New For-Profit Cultural Heritage Venture Announced by US & UK Partners
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
News on Networking Cultural Heritage Resources
from across the Community
April 8, 2000
FATHOM.COM: A New For-Profit Collaborative Venture
Announced by US & UK Partners
"The premier site for knowledge and education on the web"
http://www.fathom.com/pressreleases/04032000.html
Following up on the notice last week about the ambitions of Questia,
is this announcement from six transatlantic nonprofit educational and
cultural institutions about a new for-profit venture to distribute
educational materials to business and individual users.
David Green
===========
>WORLD-RENOWNED ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS PARTNER FOR FIRST
>TIME TO CREATE INTERACTIVE KNOWLEDGE COMPANY: FATHOM POISED TO
>REDEFINE SCOPE OF ONLINE LEARNING
>
>Founding Partners: Columbia University, The London School of
>Economics and Political Science, Cambridge University Press, The
>British Library, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of
>Natural History, and The New York Public Library
>
>
>NEW YORK AND LONDON, April 3, 2000 -- Six of the world's leading
>educational and cultural institutions announced today that they will
>create Fathom, a new company formed to launch the premier site for
>knowledge and education on the web. Fathom will present the best
>public content and courses of universities, libraries, and museums
>on a wide variety of professional, cultural, and academic subjects.
>The consortium's website, Fathom.com, will introduce the first home
>for authenticated knowledge on the Internet, serving a worldwide
>audience of business and individual users.
>
> Much of Fathom's content has never been available outside of the
>participating institutions. Founding partners who will make their
>educational and cultural resources available through Fathom include
>Columbia University, the London School of Economics and Political
>Science, Cambridge University Press, the British Library, the
>Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and
>The New York Public Library. Other institutions are expected to join
>the consortium. During the year-long development of Fathom, partners
>have invested invaluable intellectual assets and substantial
>financial resources. An experienced Internet team, headed up by
>President and CEO Ann Kirschner, Ph.D., manages the business,
>overseen by a distinguished board of directors of international
>business executives and by an Academic Council of leading scholars
>and researchers.
>
>
> "Today, most initiatives by educational institutions are focused on
>courses," she continued. "Courses are important, and courses for
>distance learning will be one of the offerings provided by some
>partners through Fathom. But learning is not limited to the
>classroom, and the many other types of content provided through
>Fathom will provide a more complete and accessible context for
>knowledge. We believe that Fathom will define the transformation of
>the online learning category into a broader interactive knowledge
>marketplace," Dr. Kirschner said.
>
> Fathom will include a comprehensive directory of related online
>courses offered by universities and cultural institutions, plus
>textbooks and other academic titles, specialized periodicals,
>individual articles and other publications, CD-ROMs, academic
>travel, and learning resources. Users will access online courses
>through Fathom, with tuition fees, accreditation, and admission
>policies set at the discretion of the offering university or
>cultural institution.
>
> Central to Fathom will be a wealth of free content usually only
>available on university campuses and at leading museums and
>libraries. This content will include multimedia lectures, seminars,
>databases, publications, and performances. Working directly with the
>prominent faculty and curators of these institutions, Fathom will
>cover a wide range of subjects such as business, law, economics,
>social sciences, medicine, computer science and technology, the
>arts, journalism, and physics.
>
> Fathom users will explore topics of interest to them professionally
>and personally. They will have the opportunity to interact and
>collaborate with the leading experts in their field. Fathom's unique
>architecture will provide a powerful "search and explore capability"
>that will allow users to follow their interests, independently or
>with expert guidance, across the widest possible range of subjects.
>
>
> "Fathom reaffirms the founding principles of the Internet," said
>Dr. Kirschner. "By providing global access to these resources,
>Fathom holds the promise of knowledge without boundaries and offers
>a new medium for the exchange of ideas. It points ahead to a future
>where the acquisition and application of knowledge can be
>independent of economic status, time constraints, and geographic
>location. Fathom and its partners are committed to creating a
>dynamic home for knowledge."
>
> All Fathom original content will be authenticated, meaning that the
>knowledge will be attributed to the appropriate educational or
>cultural institution and its faculty or professional staff. Fathom's
>standards of academic and editorial integrity will be monitored by
>the Fathom Academic Council, a panel of selected senior faculty and
>curators from participating institutions, which will be chaired by
>Jonathan Cole, Ph.D., Provost and Dean of Faculties, Columbia
>University.
>
> Examples of Fathom content currently in development include:
>
>* An oral history research project that includes 7,000 in-depth
>personal interviews, conducted over 50 years, with leaders from
>business, politics, and the arts, including, Frank Lloyd Wright,
>Dorothy Parker, Nikita Khrushchev, and Jimmy Stewart (from Columbia
>University);
>
>* Excerpts from the field journals of a preeminent anthropologist of
>the 20th century, William Duncan Strong (1899-1962) (from the
>Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives at the
>National Museum of Natural History);
>
>* An overview of the provocative new science of astrobiology, which
>brings together molecular life sciences, space exploration,
>planetary science and the search for extraterrestrials, by
>astronomer and editor Dr. Simon Mitton (from Cambridge University
>Press);
>
>* A talk on "The Weightless Economy," the shift from a world of
>manufacturing to a world of weightless services, by economist
>Professor Danny Quah (from the London School of Economics and
>Political Science);
>
>* Multimedia presentations that bring to life treasured objects,
>from the Magna Carta to the Lindisfarne Gospels (from the British
>Library);
>
>* A collection of over 54,000 photographic views of New York City
>that mark the development of the city, its architectural
>achievements, transportation system, and ethnic and cultural
>diversity (from The New York Public Library).
>
>
>Developed by top universities, Fathom will be the leading online
>destination for high-quality knowledge and education, a rapidly
>growing marketplace.
>
>Significant growth in online education is expected over the next few
>years. According to IDC, the size of the U.S. market for distance
>learning is already $2 billion and is projected to be $6 billion in
>2002 and $9 billion by 2003, a growing component of the $750 billion
>higher education market in the U.S. alone. Enrollment in online
>programs is expected to increase at an annual rate of 30-35 percent.
>
> "The fit between the Fathom business model, the vast intellectual
>capital of the founding partners, and the talented management team
>in place at Fathom is exactly what you want to see when forging a
>vibrant new space on the Internet," said Michael M. Crow, Ph.D.,
>Columbia University Executive Vice Provost. "We see an enormous need
>developing for this new interactive knowledge category. Fathom will
>meet that need with a combination of the technology we have
>developed and the best possible content provided by our
>distinguished partners."
>
> In addition to Dr. Crow and Dr. Kirschner, Fathom's international
>board of directors will include former chairman of Goldman Sachs
>Stephen Friedman, commissioner of the National Basketball
>Association David Stern, chairman of Enterprise LSE and former
>director of Shell International Keith Mackrell, and chairman and CEO
>of MBNA Corporation Alfred Lerner.
>
>
> "Fathom embraces the principles upon which the great learning
>institutions of the world were founded-to create a community where
>ideas flourish, to stimulate intellectual curiosity, and to aid in
>professional development. Fathom will harness the power of the
>Internet to enhance the learning experience while upholding the
>highest professional and scholarly standards," Dr. Kirschner said.
>
>
>Columbia University - London School of Economics and Political
>Science - Cambridge University Press - The British Library -
>Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History - The
>New York Public Library
>
==============================================================
NINCH-Anounce is an announcement listserv, produced by the National
Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). The subjects of
announcements are not the projects of NINCH, unless otherwise noted;
neither does NINCH necessarily endorse the subjects of announcements.
We attempt to credit all re-distributed news and announcements and
appreciate reciprocal credit.
For questions, comments or requests to un-subscribe, contact the editor:
<mailto:david@ninch.org>
==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at
<http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.
==============================================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a16 : Thu Dec 21 2000 - 23:30:15 EST