SIA Headquarters is happy to announce that the first issue of IA, Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology is available online!  This development has been a long time coming, and we are excited about what it will mean for the future of our journal and our Society.  After substantial consideration, the Board approved affiliation with The History Cooperative, a consortium centered at the University of Illinois Press.  The core members are The U of I Press, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the National Academies Press, with additional partners including journals such as Environmental History, The History Teacher, Journal of Social History, Labour History, and state journals such as Massachusetts Historical Review, Oregon Historical Quarterly and Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, among others.

Volume 29, No. 1, Vol. 29, No. 2, Vol. 30, No. 1 and 30, No. 2 of IA are already online. Any visitor to http://www.historycooperative.org/ can access these sample issues of IA free for the next twelve months (until January 2008).  After this initial period, only subscribers will have access.  The exact terms of electronic subscription are not settled yet, but access will certainly not involve additional cost to existing print subscribers.  We expect in the long run that some subscribers will opt for the electronic format only, and that this will provide an impetus for growth among institutional subscribers like libraries.  This has been the pattern among other history journals that have moved to an online format. Initially we will have only current issues online, but will gradually migrate back issues to this format, as well.  One of the key advantages of the History Cooperative site, over a simpler PDF page image format, is more powerful search mechanisms to allow efficient research beyond the current issues.

Please take a moment to explore this exciting new service. If you have any questions, please contact the SIA office at sia@mtu.edu or (906) 487-1889.