ETANA:
Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives

Call for Support

We ask the support of the ancient Near Eastern Studies community for an ambitious project in ancient Near Eastern Studies called ETANA (Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives), now being planned by a group of scholars and librarians. We anticipate requesting funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for this project; Mellon has already funded the planning grant for ETANA. Our goal is to offer comprehensive access to many materials in the field of ancient Near Eastern Studies. The primary host of ETANA will be Vanderbilt University's Divinity School and Divinity Library. When ETANA is fully developed we expect it to offer access

• to a restructured Abzu, currently the primary portal in ancient Near Eastern studies
• to a digital collection of early core texts that are out of print and held in only a few libraries in the world
• to a Scholars Commons featuring community news, threaded forums, works in progress, community WebPages, commentaries, open peer review, and FAQs
• to software called the Archaeologist's Tool Kit (ATK) to be used in the field by archaeologists via a personal digital assistant (PDA) for collecting data
• to a database of raw archaeological data derived from the ATK that would be searchable across multiple excavations
• to high-definition images of early texts, codices, and cuneiform that would be searchable across multiple image databases
• to digital dissertations in the field.
• to backfiles of key journals published by the partner scholarly societies
• to "born-digital" publications of the partner scholarly societies

The charter members of ETANA are

• American Oriental Society
• American Schools of Oriental Research
• Case Western Reserve University Library and the Virtual Nimrin Project
• Cobb Institute of Archaeology
• The Oriental Institute - University of Chicago
• Society of Biblical Literature
• University of Southern California Library and Inscriptifact Image Project
• Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Divinity Library

To support this important project, please send a letter to the address below, stating how Internet access to ETANA could transform or aid your research and teaching. Thank you.

Paul M. Gherman
University Librarian
Jean and Alexander Heard Library
Vanderbilt University
419 21st Ave. South
Nashville, TN 37240-0007
USA