James Monaco

James Monaco, widely respected expert on electronic publishing, film, and the entertainment industry, is President of UNET and Founder of Baseline and its subsidiary, New York Zoetrope. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Interactive Services Association and was Chairman of the Videotext Marketing Consortium.

Monaco is active in all forms of electronic publishing, from online consumer services to Multimedia CDs, from eBooks (on disc) to old-fashioned printed books. UNET's stated aim is the integration of advanced multimedia and communications technologies to serve traditional publishing media.

To that end, the company develops and sells Internet products and services, books, CDs, and DVDs.

Baseline, which Monaco founded in 1983, provides advanced communications and information services for the entertainment industry worldwide. Its subsidiary, New York Zoetrope, was a specialty book-publishing company founded in 1975 which concentrated on titles in film and entertainment. Zoetrope's catalogue included more than 40 reference and specialized titles including The Laser Video Disc Companion, The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows, and Who's Who in American Film Now. In 1999 Baseline was sold to Hollywood.com.

A leading expert in electronic publishing and online services, Monaco speaks often to industry forums in the U.S. and Europe. Engagements have included Yale's Watson School of Management, the Information Industry Association's Senior Management Symposium, the International Conference and Exposition on Multimedia and CD-ROM, Digital Video/Multimedia Expo, and Digital Hollywood.

Monaco is the author and editor of a number of books on the film industry and the media, including: The Movie Guide (Ed., Putnam, Virgin 1992); The Encyclopedia of Film (Ed., Putnam, Virgin 1991); The Connoisseur's Guide to the Movies (Facts on File 1985); American Film Now (Oxford University Press 1979,1984); Who's Who in American Film Now (New York Zoetrope 1981,1987); The Dictionary of New Media (Harbor Electronic Publishing, 1999); and the best-selling How to Read a Film (Oxford University Press 1977, 1981, 1995, 2000). Translations have appeared in German, Dutch, Italian, Korean, Czech, Turkish, Chinese, Farsi, and Japanese.

With Baseline, Leonard Maltin, and others, Monaco provided the text for Microsoft's landmark multimedia CD Cinemania.

He is the author and producer of How To Read a Film: multimedia edition, which won the DVD Association's "DVD Excellence" Award for 2001.

Monaco's journalism and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, American Film, The Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications. In the 1970s, he was a contributing editor of More and Cineaste and associate editor of Take One. As a media commentator for National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" in the early 1980s, Monaco's analysis reached more than 250 affiliate stations. His television credits include appearances on all the major American networks, ABC (Sydney), BBC (London), NHK (Tokyo), CBC (Montreal), WDR (Frankfurt) and more than a hundred local stations around the country.

A former member of the faculty of The New School for Social Research in New York, Monaco has also taught at Columbia University, The City University of New York, New York University, and elsewhere. He has lectured to a wide variety of professional, academic, and general audiences. Monaco has degrees from Muhlenberg College and Columbia University.

He is a long-time member of the Author's Guild and was a founder of the American Book Producers Association. He has served on the boards of The Program for Art on Film and The Carron Trading Company, Inc. He is a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, London.

Born and raised in New York City, Monaco currently lives and works in Manhattan and Sag Harbor with his wife, Susan Schenker, a publisher. They are the parents of three adult children.

Jim's Bibliography