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By Phil Williams
phil@franklin.uga.edu
What do you call a state that promotes historic preservation and rattlesnake roundups? That stretches from one of the continent’s oldest mountain ranges to ecologically important barrier islands? That once held powerful chiefdoms and whose largest city now makes possible the longest daily commute in America?
You can call it Georgia. The state, with all its richness and diversity, its history, leadership and problems, will be the subject of a pioneering effort when the New Georgia Encyclopedia goes online in mid-2002. Though the Encyclopedia is a state project, it has close ties to UGA, and its offices are in Candler Hall on North Campus.
The university’s involvement has been much deeper than just location, according to John Inscoe, professor of history and editor of the project.
“Although this project is huge and involves people from many institutions and all parts of the state, we have so many people with expertise at UGA that we knew from the beginning we’d want their help,” says Inscoe.
Indeed, a number of section editors for the Encyclopedia are UGA faculty and staff, and articles are already being submitted to Nancy Grayson, project coordinator, for editing. Section editors from UGA include Barry Jones, agriculture; Tom Dyer, education; Frank Golley, geography and the environment; Ed Jackson, quick facts about Georgia; Charles Hudson and Mark Williams, archaeology and early history; John Inscoe, 19th-century history; Hugh Ruppersburg, literature; and Charles Bullock, politics.
Karen Orchard, director of the UGA Press, and Dyer, vice president for instruction, have also been instrumental in the project from the beginning. Vice President for Government Relations Steve Wrigley spearheaded the fund-raising effort.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia is the first state publication of its kind—the first, that is, to be conceived and published initially as an online encyclopedia. The $2.3 million project will ultimately have superb graphics, photographs, articles, internal and external links, and audio, music and video clips, all explaining Georgia from the days of Native American chiefdoms until the present.
While UGA is deeply involved, it is only one partner in a larger group being directed by the Georgia Humanities Council and its president Jamil Zainaldin. Other partners include the University of Georgia Press, the governor’s office and the University System of Georgia’s GALILEO library network, which will host the Encyclopedia.
“I think the value of the New Georgia Encyclopedia is its revolutionary use of knowledge,” says Zainaldin. “Just imagine a project that puts the state of Georgia’s intellectual resources, which are predominantly centered in our higher-education system, at the fingertips of every citizen (and for that matter every student in Georgia with Internet access) who wants to know about some aspect of the state—and at no charge.”
Working with a company called Merrill-Hall New Media in Atlanta, the team is making progress toward creating an attractive, interactive Web site that will be useful for schoolchildren, journalists, tourists or those considering relocating to Georgia. The Encyclopedia won’t just be about history, though it will have its share of historical coverage.
“There are really endless possibilities,” says Grayson, former editor-in-chief of the University Press of Kentucky. “For instance, we could do photo essays or actually show an art exhibition while it is under way; it could be archived as a permanent part of the encyclopedia. There is so much we can make available to the people of the state.”
Indeed, when one asks the team, which also includes assistant editors Elisabeth Hughes and Sheree Dendy, when the Encyclopedia will be finished, the response is a collective laugh. While the team believes that the site will be up and running within a year or so, it’s not the kind of project that’s ever actually finished, since it will be online instead of between hard covers and will be constantly updated.
Already, the project is drawing national interest. Other states are considering similar efforts, which are part of a “regionalism initiative” started by William Ferris, director of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The state of Georgia got the project started with a grant of $500,000, but a number of other organizations have contributed, with the Woodruff Foundation’s half-million-dollar grant being the largest.
This is also the first such Web site that will be written in a relatively new computer language called XML, which the designers at Merrill-Hall say will make more powerful searches possible.
“The Encyclopedia will always be expanded and upgraded on an ongoing basis,” says Inscoe. “We’ve had two very progressive governors [Zell Miller and Roy Barnes] supporting it, and Jamil Zainaldin has really been the one who’s made this happen.”
Ultimately, the “e-encyclopedia” will be the equivalent of a several-thousand-page book, the team says, though that could be several years down the road. So far, more than 300 articles have been contributed, and hundreds more will arrive in the next few months, Grayson says. Several thousand articles will be included within a few years.
“This is where we as Georgians are quite fortunate in the level of leadership we have in the governor’s office, at the Humanities Council and the university as well,” says Inscoe. “We have come to appreciate that particularly as we talk to other states who don’t have that level of support or resources as they plan similar projects.”
CONTRIBUTIONS
Anyone wishing to contribute to, or propose an article for, the Encyclopedia can send a brief description, along with an address, phone number and e-mail address, to 211 Candler Hall (ngeproj@ugapress.uga.edu). |
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