The Library is committed to using the full capability of current technologies
to support the traditional library mission of collecting, preserving
and making materials accessible. As evidence of this commitment, the
Library will soon establish a
Center
for Library Digital Initiatives to make its historic and unique
materials available electronically. By digitizing these resources and
creating powerful new access and navigational tools for their use, the
Library's traditional resources can serve in new ways as raw material
for scholars and students. In recent years as the technological and
intellectual challenges of digitization have come to be better understood,
a critical mass of experience and expertise has developed. Indeed the
Library has contributed to that growing body of national experience
with its first full-scale digitization project,
African-American
Sheet Music, 1850-1920, produced with a grant in the Library of
Congress's American Memory series.
In order to be able to sustain the production of high-quality digital
projects the Library has resolved, on the basis of its strategic planning
effort, to reallocate resources in support of the on-going development
and expansion of digital initiatives. A modest start-up hardware and
software budget will be carved out of the Library's FY2001-2002 budget.
To fulfill initial staffing needs, the Library has reallocated a vacant
professional position and is currently conducting a national search
for a librarian to launch this effort. The Center will utilize the skills
of Brown students to perform much of the actual conversion of materials
to digital formats by scanning and other techniques. It is recognized
that additional staffing and funding will be essential if the Center
is to fulfill its vision and promise. To that end, the Digital Initiatives
Librarian will seek out funding opportunities and, as the scope of the
Library's projects grows more ambitious, will explore partnerships with
colleague institutions, with other not-for-profit institutions, and
with the commercial sector.
The Center for Library Digital Initiatives will be located on the second
floor of the Rockefeller Library in a sizable space soon to be vacated
by the move of the Reserves Unit to the first floor as part of the renovation
of the Circulation Department. This location is both convenient to the
special collections resources located in the John Hay Library and allows
the greatest flexibility in hours of operation.
In addition to establishing an in-house production facility, the Digital
Initiatives Librarian will work closely with faculty and with library
subject and collections specialists to identify projects which support
and enhance faculty teaching and research. A survey of faculty interest
and experience in producing and using digital scholarly resources is
now in preparation. In addition a Digital Initiatives Group is currently
laying the groundwork for the Center by identifying potential projects
and developing standards and guidelines for selection and prioritization.
Among the initial projects under consideration for the Center are:
- World War II Documentary Art - over 600 original works of art done by
ordinary soldiers and sailors in the field
- World War I Related Sheet
Music - 1,300 titles with color covers and scarce portraits of performers
covering subjects such as war propaganda, the roles of women in wartime,
isolationism, patriotism, refugees, comic songs
- Thomas Nast Scrapbook
- an extremely fragile repository of Nast's working library of Civil
War sketches, drawings, and photographs
- Chester H. Kirk Collection
on Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous - from a leaf of the 1493 Nuremberg
Chronicle depicting a drunken Noah to movies, videos, books, pamphlets,
journals and magazines, newspapers, prints, audio tapes, photographs,
government publications, autographs, posters, musical scores, and catalogs
- Napoleonic Caricatures - lively and colorful works which illuminate
the politics and society of late 18th - early 19th century Europe
- George Orwell Manuscript of 1984 - the only surviving
Orwell manuscript
- Emile Zola letters - correspondence about contemporary writers and
journalists, literary criticism, the stage, censorship, politics, and
personal affairs
Stay tuned as more and more of the Library's treasures make their way
to the classroom and the desktop. Our fervent hope is that students
and scholars will use these resources, as they have used traditional
library resources, to re-discover, re-interpret and re-evaluate human
knowledge and experience. As James O'Donnell says in
Avatars of the
Word: "The dream of the virtual library comes forward now not because
it promises an exciting future, but because it promises a future that
will be just like the past, only better and faster."
