With a sharply focused eye on daily events affecting the Sea Services and 138 years of critical thought captured in our archives, it is clear that a number of new electronic initiatives are needed for the Naval Institute to stay timely, relevant, and accessible.
Some of these initiatives are just good practices; all will help serve our members better and allow us to accomplish our mission more effectively. One example is our growing eBook program. The Naval Institute Press is strongly positioned with 53 eBooks currently selling well (via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Apple) and some 170 to be available by the end of 2012. Most of our new titles will debut as print and eBook versions simultaneously.
Digital publishing is also breathing new life into our backlist books. Some are classic works that have long been out of print, leaving buyers scouring used-book markets for copies. The instant availability of eBooks ends that frustration while print-on-demand technology can deliver print books quickly to consumers who prefer them. Thanks to strong support by several generous member donors, look for about 85 classic titles from our backlist to join the eBook library in 2012. As always, we will concentrate on bringing you literary content that relates to our mission. Most of our titles would not get published without USNI and its loyal members.
In line with observations from our active-duty members, the Naval Institute has begun work on a new initiative with significant scope—USNI’s Naval Wiki. Building on the Wikipedia model, it supports the Sea Services’ most basic requirement to document every aspect of the naval profession in a living, growing medium that will continuously improve and always be accessible. Our goal is to fill a gap for an active-duty audience that sees a need for user-driven content. The Institute’s Naval Wiki will be one gateway into the USNI world and have the advantage of broad viral exposure and networking.
As part of our strategic planning process, we identified the need to address issues in a more topical, timely, and relevant fashion. To that end, we are hiring an online editor-at-large to focus on this type of content. We will leverage this new approach with an iPad Content App and eventually broaden this delivery mechanism to include iPhones, Android tablets, and smart phones.
For many people, the face of USNI is our web presence. The USNI website is undergoing an extensive redesign to improve navigation and functionality as well as provide more powerful search capabilities and a better overall user experience. Organizations must evolve constantly to remain relevant. USNI.org is not something we will ever finish, and our goals for the future are flexibility and scalability with a theme of excellent member-user experience. As a growing, content-rich, archival repository of USNI intellectual property, the website makes it possible for the Naval Institute to become an important destination for all things related to the Sea Services, past, present, and future.
Life Member and member since 1978