Earlier this year, the U.S. Naval Institute, with the generous sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Corporation, issued a call for papers for the 2014 Information Dominance Essay Contest. Those entering the contest were invited to address the following challenge: What are the appropriate roles for the military services and the Defense Information Systems Agency to establish, sustain, and operate in the Joint Information Environment? The response, in terms of number and quality of entries, has been outstanding. I am pleased to announce the winners.
First Prize: “Naval Constraints in a Joint Environment,” by Lieutenant Peyton Price, U.S. Navy, published in this month’s Proceedings, with the author receiving an award of $5,000 and a one-year Naval Institute membership.
Second Prize: “Defensive Cyber Maneuver,” by Captain Douglas A. Powers, U.S. Navy, with an award of $2,500 and a one-year Naval Institute membership, to be published online.
Third Prize: “Lanes in the Road,” by Lieutenant Nathan M. Rolfe, U.S. Navy, with an award of $1,500 and a one-year Naval Institute membership, to be published online.
Information dominance is a rapidly evolving, top-priority challenge. We hope these essays will inspire a steady flow of informed, forward-looking writings, and we thank Hewlett-Packard for its sponsorship of the contest. The deadline for next year’s contest, again sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, is 1 February 2015.
As you likely have noticed, we are reemphasizing essay contests. Long a Naval Institute tradition, essay contests create opportunities to focus editorial attention and interest on critical issues and subjects. These contests give authors extra incentives to enter the forum and potential sponsors the opportunity to actively participate in the generation of innovative thinking.
In May, we announced the decade-by-decade rollout of all 140 years of Proceedings in digital format. This month, Professor Barney Rubel, Dean, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College, takes a look at the thinking and the writing, the authors and the articles, in the decade 1890-1899.
Ease of access to Proceedings in digital format helps to remind us of the Naval Institute’s rich history and heritage. Its role in the creation of the U.S. Naval Academy’s Museum in what is now Preble Hall is a case in point.
In the April 1938 Proceedings, Secretary-Treasurer Captain G. V. Stewart, U.S. Navy, wrote:
The enabling Act which will authorize the building of a Naval Academy Museum has met with approval by the Senate and has every prospect of receiving equal favor in the House and at the hands of the President.
We have received the approved general plan for the building which will be of whitish gray brick with white granite trim to conform with the architectural style set for other Naval Academy buildings. The plan shows a handsome structure 102 feet in frontage and 70 feet in depth capable of expansion as the museum grows and as funds become available. The frontage will be along Maryland Avenue, properly aligned with Sampson Hall and in the area between the Academic Building and the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, commonly referred to as the Club.
That part of the second floor allocated to office space for the Institute will provide a little more working area than we now occupy with a far better arrangement for the Institute’s working conditions.
That our members will have pride in so commendable a project to which they have contributed, we feel certain. At the same time they will have the satisfaction of knowing that they have safeguarded the future of the Institute by providing it with a permanent, legally approved home.
In the September 1938 Proceedings, Captain Stewart gave an update advising that with the approval of the Board of Control and in accordance with the recorded vote of Institute members, he had drawn a check for $50,000 and presented it to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy. In the July 1939 Proceedings, he reported that the Naval Institute had entered its new offices on 11 May, and that the Museum had officially opened on 27 May. An Act of Congress of March 1938 provides that the Naval Institute will be located at the U.S. Naval Academy.
The Institute moved to its current location in Beach Hall in 1999. The Naval Academy Museum is still in Preble Hall today, and the Naval Institute remains proud of its part in the museum’s history and its contribution to the construction of Preble Hall.
As part of my periodic reports on the implementation of our strategic planning, I am pleased to offer this current snapshot of the Naval Institute Press’s e-book production.
The Naval Institute currently has 380 titles available for sale as e-books. Just four years into this new dimension of our book-publishing program, here are the e-book numbers by January of each year:
• 2011, 3
• 2012, 47
• 2013, 137
• 2014, 344
• 2015 – planned, a target we will meet, 420
Seal of Honor: Operation Red Wings and The Life of Lt. Michael P. Murphy, USN, was the first e-book published, and to date has sold 26,254 copies in that format. More recent backlist best sellers include No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War by Hiroo Onoda and Submarine! by Captain Edward L. Beach Jr., U.S. Navy. The indications are that you our Members find this new publishing service valuable.