[Print Version/PDF]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jennifer Heffelfinger
Alexander Street Press, LLC
jheffelfinger@alexanderstreet.com
800-889-5937 ext. 5

(October 3, 2003 – Alexandria, VA) Earlier this year, Women and Social Movements, a top website in Women’s Studies with over 30,000 visits per month, was facing a dilemma: how could they continue to expand the valuable resources on their site despite the end of their funding? The solution: a dramatic new way of working with publishers. Alexander Street Press and scholars at SUNY Binghamton’s Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender have teamed up to find a new collaborative model for keeping the award-winning Women and Social Movements website alive.

Professors Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Kish Sklar launched one of the most heavily visited women’s studies websites in the world six years ago, and kept it growing with a series of grants. Like many websites dedicated to research and scholarship, the end of the grants threatened to end or immobilize the project. But, with a commercial hand from Alexander Street Press, and funds generated by a larger, subscription-based version of the site, Women and Social Movements will not only continue, but take on new form.

Dublin explains, “Alexander Street was an ideal match for us. We share a commitment to giving voice to the unheard. And, Alexander Street’s Semantic Indexing™ enables us to offer much deeper access to our materials.” Stephen Rhind-Tutt, president of Alexander Street, added, “When we saw the SUNY site, we knew that it had to be rescued. The document projects, introductions, bibliographies, Dictionary of Social Movements, lesson plans, and other features are exquisite, and all lent themselves to our production features. We’re thrilled to launch this as the first of what we hope will be many such publisher-scholar collaborations for us.”

Historians Dublin and Sklar will remain the editors of Women and Social Movements, and their editorial board of fourteen scholars from across the country will assist in creating new document projects and selecting additional primary sources for the site. In addition, a large portion of the materials on the existing site will remain freely available after the launch of the subscription-based version.

Women and Social Movements in the United States: 1600 to 2000 will be launched on October 15, when Alexander Street Press opens its servers to libraries, research organizations, and media from all over the world to enjoy 90 days of free and open access. Please visit http://womhist.binghamton.edu or http://alexanderstreet.com for more information. On January 15, 2004, access will again be limited to subscribers. Orders received before January 1, 2004 will receive an extra 3 free months of access at no additional charge.

For more information on the project, please contact Jennifer Heffelfinger, Manager of Marketing and Public Relations at 800-889-5937, ext. 5 or by email, jheffelfinger@alexanderstreet.com.

AWARDED *BEST CONTENT* AND *BEST CONTRACT OPTIONS*
THE CHARLESTON ADVISOR'S 2003 READER'S CHOICE AWARDS

Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., is an academic publisher of electronic full-text databases in the humanities and social sciences. Founded in June 2000, the company publishes collections in history, literature, 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.

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