The Information Technology Research division of the National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year $385,000 grant for ETANA to develop a digital library for archaeology. The grant has been accepted by the University Libraries at Case Western Reserve University where Hallinan Professor Emeritus James W. Flanagan will be Principal Investigator and Libraries Director Dr. Joanne Eustis will serve as a co-Principal Investigator. Vanderbilt’s Professor of Hebrew Bible, Douglas A. Knight, and Virginia Tech’s computer scientists, Professors Edward Fox and Weiguo Fan are also co-PIs. The technology used in the digital library will be developed at Virginia Tech on behalf of ETANA, CWRU, and other users. Approximately half a dozen ETANA consortium member excavation projects including Tel Aviv University’s Megiddo Excavation, the Madeba Plain Project excavations, the Tell Nimrin Project, and the Tel Halif excavation will provide initial materials and expertise.
This is the first time that library science, computer science, and Near Eastern archaeology have worked in such a close relationship. When developed, the digital library will make both the primary data and secondary studies of participating projects immediately available online and accessible world-wide.
For more information about ETANA see:
www.etana.org
For questions contact, Paul Gherman, University Librarian, Vanderbilt University, gherman@library.vanderbilt. edu