“Neptune’s Needle” is a relational database intended as a collaborative undertaking to encourage and facilitate the study and teaching of maritime history, especially, in its pilot phase, Early American Maritime History. The database has been to date a one-person effort, that of an American historian still feeling his way into the subject, as a means of ordering the vast and disparate materials needed to begin to do justice to the teaching of American maritime history. But it aspires to encompass maritime studies in its fullest global context by engaging the interest of and soliciting the contributions of maritimists in all disciplines, specialties and professions.

“Neptune Needle” is currently maintained at Barnard College, Columbia University and is administered by the Barnard Electronic Archive and Teaching Lab (BEATL). It is web accessible in both its search and edit modes, depending upon the user’s classification. The project has enjoyed the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, and Barnard College.

Inquiries, suggestions and offers to contribute entries are warmly invited. They can directed to:

Edward Jahn
Associate Director, BEATL
Barnard College, Columbia University