Modernizing Waternet: From Print Publishing to the Digital Frontier.

This article focuses on the American Water Works Association (AWWA). AWWA is a non-profit membership-driven association dedicated to safe drinking water in the U.S. and abroad. Founded in 1881 with 22 members, it has grown to over 57,000 members, including 4,700 water utilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. AWWA is well known to water professionals in North America and worldwide as a leading information resource. Information circulation has been important to the everyday dealings of AWWA for over 124 years. With a complex membership structure, a vast volunteer network and more than 57,000 members, databases have also played a key role in tracking member and customer data. Ironically, however, one of the databases that will be core to the association's modem plan to rapidly deliver content to the public has been largely an after-thought during its 26-year life span. In 1997, with the traditional paper document delivery system still in place, AWWA began to publish some of its content, most notably conference proceedings, in a CD-ROM format. The ramifications of this were not completely realized at the time, and there were some growing pains, but by the time Y2K rolled around, AWWA had become primarily a PDF publisher, recognizing the obvious benefits of having its literature in electronic format.