The Papers of Martin Van Buren Included in the Virginia Digital Publishing Cooperative

The Papers of Martin Van Buren (PMVB) at Cumberland University will join the Virginia Digital Publishing Cooperative led by the University of Virginia, a collaborative made possible thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Digital Edition Publishing Cooperative Grant program, which was created in 2017 by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The cooperative, one of only eight proposals to be accepted by this new funding initiative, will bring together experts from 17 projects and organizations.

Beginning in January 2018, the Virginia Digital Publishing Cooperative will meet monthly to discuss the current challenges of developing and publishing digital scholarly editions and projects. Composed of leaders from various presidential papers projects as well as other documentary editing projects, the team will work together to propose by the end of 2018 an accessible, robust, and sustainable infrastructure for digital publication. The cooperative will include:

• the Papers of George Washington (PGW)
• the Papers of James Madison (PJM)
• the John Dickinson Writings project
• the Papers of James Monroe
• the Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen
• the Dolley Madison Digital Edition
• the Washington Family Papers project
• the Founding Women project
• the Papers of Martin Van Buren
• the Papers of Woodrow Wilson
• and the Presidential Recordings program

The National Historic Publications and Records Commission partnered on this initiative with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to “respond to the urgent need of scholars and documentary editors for reliable, sustainable, authoritative, and field-driven outlets for publication and discovery of digital editions.”

"This grant opportunity creates a much-needed documentary editing consortium to discuss the future of digital publication," PMVB project director Mark Cheathem said. "The Van Buren Papers' selection to participate is a testament both to our successful partnership with the CDE and the significant progress that we have made as a new presidential papers project."