It is hard to believe we are past the 50 percent mark of 2014. I am pleased to announce that our “mid-transit” report is positive:
• The monthly rollout of digitized, word-searchable decades of Proceedings continues apace. You can explore these using the upgraded search features of our website.
• We are ready to launch in the Apple newsstand, offering Naval History magazine and other special collections. Look for these this month!
• We are halfway through preserving the tapes of the almost 300 subjects in our oral history program. This important work will be completed by October.
• We are ahead of our business plan overall, and we are confident we will have another positive year for the Institute.
• We are on track for membership to increase again this year.
Mine warfare—offensive and defensive, past, present, and future—has been and is a key, sometimes neglected part of the Navy’s mission. The U.S. Naval Institute and the Mine Warfare Association decided earlier this year it was time to sharpen the focus, and with the generous sponsorship of the Mine Warfare Association, we issued a call for papers for the 2014 Naval Mine Warfare Essay Contest.
Good authors went to work. Excellent entries were received and judged, and we have the winners:
First Prize: “Mine and Undersea Warfare for the Future,” by Joshua J. Edwards and Captain Dennis Gallagher, USN, published in this month’s Proceedings, with the authors receiving an award of $1,000 and one-year Naval Institute memberships.
Second Prize: “Terrorist Naval Mines/Underwater Improvised Explosive Devices,” by Peter von Bleichert, to be published online, with the author receiving an award of $500 and a one-year Naval Institute membership.
Third Prize: “Position Open: USN Mine Warfare Champion,” by Scott Truver, to be published online, with the author receiving an award of $250 and a one-year Naval Institute Membership.
We again thank the Mine Warfare Association for its sponsorship of this contest, one of a growing number of essay contests designed to stimulate ever-greater thinking, writing, and publishing in the Naval Institute’s open forum.
As we move deeper into the summer reading season, I hope you are taking the opportunity to peruse the Naval Institute Press fall 2014 catalog. We have some outstanding new titles, starting with The Accidental Admiral: A Sailor Takes Command at NATO, by Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.).
If it is a time for summer reading, it is also a time for long summer drives. Please remember that more and more of our titles are available as audiobooks, which you may order through Amazon and other online vendors. The steadily growing list of some 30 Naval Institute Press audiobook titles includes such classics as Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October and Stephen Coonts’ Flight of the Intruder and outstanding newer works such as SEAL of Honor: Operation Red Wings and the Life of Lt. Michael P. Murphy, USN by Gary Williams and Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed by Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille.
Please visit www.usni.org/store/books/audio-books to browse the full list of audiobooks from the Naval Institute Press.
Enjoy the Naval Institute Press and have its books with you wherever you go. Our best wishes for a good summer.