Mellon grant awarded to Indiana University Press, Kent State University Press, and Temple University Press

Indiana University Press, Kent State University Press, and Temple University Press have been awarded a five-year implementation grant of $877,000 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop and publish Ethnomusicology Multimedia (EM), a collaborative series of first books in ethnomusicology to be accompanied by a web-based platform for hosting audio and video materials integral to the authors’ research. The implementation grant follows a one-year $80,000 Mellon planning grant awarded to the three presses in 2008.

According to Janet Rabinowitch, Director of Indiana University Press, the lead publisher in the group, “this exciting and groundbreaking initiative grows out of university presses’ efforts to experiment with innovative publishing models and technologies.” Because of the multidisciplinary character of the ethnomusicology field, the EM series and its multimedia platform promise important impacts. The new combinations of scholarly inquiry and methods of dissemination, across disciplines and media, will benefit scholarly communication everywhere.
 
To develop the web-based platform, the three presses will collaborate with Indiana University’s Ethnomusicological Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive (EVIADA) and Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities (IDAH) to develop software that accommodates the needs of the authors, publishers, and readers of EM books. The three presses will also work cooperatively on editing, production, and marketing of the books in the series. Publication of the first books and the launch of the website are projected for 2011.

Will Underwood, Director of Kent State University Press, is “thrilled that the Mellon Foundation has awarded support for our three presses to develop Ethnomusicology Multimedia. We expect EM to become the ‘go to’ place online for audiovisual material in ethnomusicology.”

Alex Holzman, Director of Temple University Press, declared, “This is precisely the sort of collaboration among presses and other organizations within the university that will produce innovations that will be critical to advancing scholarly communication in the twenty-first century.”

Ruth Stone, Director of IDAH, expressed particular pleasure “that the IU Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities will partner with the university presses to develop a website that will bring the music and performances that ethnomusicologists study ever more vividly to the readers of ethnomusicology books.”