High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Fathom was an online learning portal project, spearheaded by Columbia University, that opened to the public in late 2000. Partners in the venture included the London School of Economics and Political Science, the British Library, the New York Public Library, Cambridge University Press, and the Smithsonian Institution`s National Museum of Natural History. Failing to turn a profit despite a 2002 business plan change, Fathom closed in early 2003.