[1] Produced by the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), Rudy Abramson and Dr. Jean Haskell, are the two main editors of the encyclopedia.
[1] It includes a foreword by William Ferris, former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, who called the encyclopedia "truly a feast of information about its region .
a remarkably detailed portrait of a landscape that runs from New York to Mississippi.”[1] The volume also includes an appreciation by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, who is a native of West Virginia.
Appalachia is a rich and beautiful land steeped in tradition and open to change.
The ETSU Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services, now directed by Dr. Ron Roach, has begun a project to produce an updated, digital version of the entire encyclopedia, which will be available online for free.