Two of the strongest allegiances for most people are their alma mater and professional society. One's alma mater is often a discussion around the water-cooler, as individuals discuss their sports teams, academic accolades or successful alumni.
Professional societies do not have sports teams (although staff can play a mean game of volleyball), but there often is a spirit of camaraderie among members of professional societies that is a key aspect to networking.
The AAPG Foundation has combined these two key allegiances -- school and professional society -- to offer a new funding opportunity called the "Digital Products University Subscription Fund." This fund is designed to provide students and faculty at your favorite university with essentially all of AAPG's digital data. This is accomplished through a gift that forms an endowment that will allow your school to have access to this data in perpetuity.
The cost of the endowment is $12,500, and can be donated by an individual or a group of individuals. The grant can be named after the individuals providing the funds or it can be named after someone you want remembered -- such as a favorite professor.
The beauty of the program is that every time a student or faculty member logs into the AAPG Datapages system, there is an acknowledgement page that thanks those who made it possible and/or who you want to honor. These pages typically receive thousands of hits through the course of a year.
"Naming opportunities" at a university, such as a chair, typically require major donations in hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Digital Products Fund endowment provides a significant naming opportunity for those of us who would like to do something significant for our alma mater.
For example, Digital Products University Subscription endowments have been established at the following schools:
- Oklahoma State University, in memory of Paul McDaniel, endowed by a group of his friends and OSU alumni.
- Louisiana State University, in honor of Rufus J. LeBlanc Sr., endowed by John Shelton.
- Miami University of Ohio, in honor of Robert H. Nanz Jr., endowed by John Shelton.
- University of Illinois, in memory of Harold W. Scott, Harold R. Wanless and George W. White, endowed by alumni and spearheaded by Jack Threet.
- Rice University, endowed by Martha Lou Broussard.
Establishing the endowment is as easy as a phone call or e-mail. In fact, as I was writing this column, past AAPG President Dick Bishop called to commit to an endowment for the University of Houston.
If you would like more information on this new program please contact Rebecca Griffin in the AAPG Foundation office by telephone at 1-918-560-2644 (or, for domestic and Canada, 888-945-2274, Ext. 644), or by e-mail at 
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Plato said that "all learning has an emotional base." This is a great opportunity to provide a significant instrument of education based on the allegiance and emotion you feel for both your alma mater and professional society.
Digital Products University Subscription Fund
The first sponsored data program organized by AAPG was from 1993 to 1996, when AAPG's digital subsidiary, Datapages, Inc., and six industry leaders provided $900,000 to digitize the entire publications archive of AAPG. We became the first upstream publisher with a 100 percent digital archive. Anadarko, Conoco, Exxon, Marathon, Mobil, and Texaco provided the necessary seed money to make the first phase of growth possible and establishing AAPG as the preeminent leader in online upstream publishing. Since that time, AAPG/Datapages has captured and converted nearly 450,000 published pages.
The following is available for the Digital Products University Subscription Fund:
- All AAPG publications from 1917 through present
- Journal of Sedimentary Research 1931 through present
- Journal of Petroleum Geology 1978 through 2002
Gulf Coast USA Group
- GCAGS (Gulf Coast USA) Transactions 1951 through present
- New Orleans Geological Society
- East Texas Geological Society
- Lafayette Geological Society
Mid-continent and Southwest USA Group
- Tulsa Geological Society*
- Oklahoma City Geological Society*
- Panhandle (Amarillo) Geological Society
- Ardmore (OK) Geological Society
- Kansas Geological Society*
- Fort Worth Geological Society*
- Dallas Geological Society* Canadian Group
- Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists*
Rocky Mountain Group
- Wyoming Geological Association*
International Group
- Indonesian Petroleum Association*
- Circum Pacific Council of Energy and Mineral Resources *
* Asterisk denotes collection "in process"