June 11, 2003

It's been featured on the TV series "The West Wing" and has been discussed in mission studies in thousands of churches across America.

Now, the Peters Projection World Map is getting a wider distribution channel that will expose its concept to an even larger audience.

Friendship Press, the publishing arm of the National Council of Churches, first introduced this pioneering map of the world in 1983 as a teaching tool to help church leaders in the NCC's 36 denominations visualize a more accurate picture of the relative land mass of the world's countries and continents.

This map technique, developed by cartographer Dr. Arno Peters in Europe, avoids the distortions prevalent in other map projections which exaggerate the size of some land masses, especially in the northern hemisphere, and "shrink" other land masses. Decisions and attitudes formed by these distortions can thus be inaccurate. For example, on the traditional Mercator map, Greenland and Africa look the same size. But in reality Africa is 14 times larger.

Now, 20 years after bringing the Peters Map to the United States, the National Council of Churches has turned to ODT, Inc., of Amherst, Mass., to become the exclusive distributor for all Peters Maps products, effective June 1.

Spencer Bates, NCC's chief financial officer, said the transfer to ODT will permit more vigorous marketing of various Peters-based products.

ODT maintains a full-service web site (www.odt.org) and a toll-free order line (800-736-1293), and has distribution channels to secondary schools, colleges and universities; wholesale supply to hundreds of stores, catalogs, and specialty sales outlets; and well-developed merchandising support. ODT president Howard Bronstein announced that his firm would offer Friendship Press' remaining inventory of the Peters Maps at discounts of 50-80% off the regular retail price to non-profit groups who are past Friendship Press customers, as long as supplies last. Details on this limited transition offer are available from Bob Abramms at Babramms@aol.com, or 800-736-1293.

Bronstein said ODT first offered the Peters Map more than a decade ago, in cooperation with Friendship Press, as a management consulting tool to help clients adapt to change and diversity. The maps ultimately became some of ODT's "best sellers" and now form an important part of the firm's product line, with distribution channels in the U.K., Australia, Belgium Sweden, the Netherlands and Guatemala.

Based on the success of the Peters concept, ODT has recently produced another equal-area map, the Hobo Dyer Projection, displayed by President Jimmy Carter at his Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 2002.

NCC News Service