University of Connecticut

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT YourL InformationI ConnectionBRwww.lib.uconn.eduARINovember/DecemberES 2007 Libraries Launch Large-Scale Book Digitization Project Unfettered Online Access to 3,000 Volumes Expected Over Next Two Years David Lowe ver the next two years, the University of Higher Education Daily OConnecticut Libraries will send more than 3,000 Report, not to mention on volumes from our shelves to Boston, where they will be numerous blogs, and in digitized by the Open Content Alliance (OCA) on other media. Open Content Alliance’s book scanning equipment at the Boston Public Library. equipment hosted at the Boston Public Library (BPL). What’s wrong with corporate funding? OCA is the textual wing of the Internet Archive Why are we are doing this in the first place? The Internet Archive’s OCA effort features the open (archive.org), a non-profit founded by Internet entrepre- First, we have accepted the fact that the business of access many value so dearly, and it holds promise for neur Brewster Kahle as a vast, freely accessible multime- research libraries—information—is increasingly more serving as a significant portal for digitized texts. dia collection, including Web sites, audio, video, and about bits than atoms, more about online files than Proprietary pitfalls are second nature to some software now books. The most significant aspect of our venture paper. The new digital medium has intoxicatingly companies, and they are a major character flaw we want into large-scale or “mass digitization,” as it is often powerful advantages over the paper mode of opera- to avoid. Despite their largesse, Google and Microsoft called, is that the 19 members of the Boston Library tion. Ubiquitous access of the 24/7 variety is just the tend to attach strings to the scanning that they under- Consortium (BLC), including UConn, have agreed to thing for our impatient, multitasking age. Full access to write. Restricted access, advertisements, and even pool resources and handily cleared the $500,000 every page image in sequence or via the text, newly privacy infringements are concerns that we hope to minimum ($250,000/year for two years) needed to made searchable, will be available to anyone with an completely avoid by following the path less paid for. establish an OCA scanning center at the BPL. This Internet connection. Still, there are some limitations Another factor in favor of this corporate-free bootstrap attitude of avoiding corporate money from that we must live with. approach is that the final product, the quality of the the likes of Google and Microsoft has raised some Since we do not own the intellectual property images, and the completeness of all of the work will be eyebrows. The New York Times recently featured our rights to much of what is in our collections, we must under our control. Some of the large scale projects to consortium’s decision to pay its own way on its front first confirm that the materials we hope to make date have made it evident that libraries have gotten page; follow-up articles have appeared in The Chronicle of available online is in the public domain. Determining what they have paid for in their that status can lead us into murky gray areas of free corporate scanning. Quality copyright law, so to be safe, initially we will primarily has unquestionably been sacri- focus on books printed in North America before 1923. ficed for quantity’s sake. Some advocate including documents published by the Rather than relying on U.S. Federal government, which are declared by law to corporate backers, we hope the be in the public domain. However, promises by the idea of truly open access will Government Printing Office (GPO) to comprehen- appeal to philanthropic interests, sively provide open access online to that material bear like the Alfred P. Sloan Founda- patient watching. To include federal documents now tion, which is generously funding would mean expending precious resources to convert an upcoming BLC summit for what the GPO may do soon anyway for all of us. university administrators, librar- As the flagship public university in our state, ians, and others involved in President Michael Hogan chats with external relations assistant Ann UConn has a natural starting point with the primacy of scholarly communication to Galonska while Vice Provost for University Libraries Brinley Franklin Connecticut specifically, but also New England more discuss the ramifications of large- looks on during the president’s first visit to the library. Hogan visited the broadly. Another targeted category, common to library on October 17 to view a library exhibit of the books he had scale digitization. Granting agency written or edited, to meet staff, and tour the building. In brief remarks, preservation reformatting programs, are those books officers continue to monitor our Hogan talked of his lifelong love of books and libraries and the fact that identified upon return from circulation as brittle or his brother works in the library at the University of Iowa, where Hogan progress, and the hope of more otherwise in need of having their content transferred previously served as provost. While here, Franklin presented him with outside funding provides us with a copy of “Celebrating Research: Rare and Special Collections from from the paper they are on. Within the set parameters even greater incentive to do good the Membership of the Association of Research Libraries,” which was (pre-1923 monographs), we remain open for now to just published in honor of the 75th anniversary of ARL. work. Continued on page 4 R O M T H E V I C E P R O V O S T Bit by Bit Worldwide Directory of Online Brinley Franklin, vice provost Collective Catalogs Debuts University of Connecticut Libraries Lana Babij she sought two specific journals on the history of he University of Connecticut Libraries is now a design in Sweden. player in the world of mass digitization. Through cholars and librarians seeking resources in T “I read Swedish and some Danish so my search a collaboration announced in September between the Sother parts of the world have a new tool at their was quite thorough, but your directory turned up a Boston Library Consortium (BLC) and the Open disposal thanks to the creation of a worldwide batch of sites I’d missed. … I now have a much Content Alliance (OCA), all 19 BLC members (includ- directory of national and multinational online union, better sense of which libraries I can and should ing the Boston Public Library, Tufts, UConn, the five or collective, catalogs and related resources. explore on upcoming trips,” Givens said. UMass campuses’ libraries, UNH, Northeastern, Conceived of and compiled by Lana Babij, a As the name indicates, MetaBibCatsWiki is an Wellesley, Brandeis, Boston University, Brown, MIT, search librarian in Document Delivery/Interlibrary online collaborative directory, similar in concept and Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole Oceano- Loan at Homer Babbidge Library, MetaBibCatsWiki design to Wikipedia. It allows for direct and ongoing graphic Institution, Boston College, the Massachusetts (http://wiki.lib.uconn.edu/wiki/MetaBibCatsWiki), input of information whether by its originator, or by State Library, and Williams) agreed to digitize and make which debuted in June, has two main sections. One any responsible individual in the world who wishes to publicly accessible almost a million pages from its offers brief descriptions and links to the major contribute. Since the Directory’s debut, a few collectively owned 34 million volumes over a two year multinational catalogs of the world; including, for librarians/researchers have already modified the period using scanners housed at the Boston Public example, the U.S.-based WorldCat, the Karlsruher entries for their countries with useful additional Library and provided by the OCA. Virtueller Katalog, or KVK, and the new viaLibris resources. The concept of mass digitization probably Catalog. The second consists of a country by MetaBibCatsWiki is a work in progress. Most of originated with Google’s announcement three years ago country listing of national union catalogs and related the countries of the Americas and Europe are that it was starting to digitize books at five major online resources. Since the directory is intended for represented, as well as Australia and New Zealand. research libraries: the New York Public Library the entire international community, each country is Representation from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa (NYPL), Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, and Oxford. As also identified and searchable by its native name, is growing. Xiaolin (Charlie) Pei, a conservation a group these five libraries’ collections represent more and where possible in its native script. Furthermore, technician in Babbidge Library’s Conservation Lab, than 55 million volumes. At the time, observers noted the major institutions and catalogs listed are also has provided invaluable assistance for the China and that it would take Google less than a decade (and identified in their native languages as well as in Taiwan entries. Since the Directory’s debut, librar- something like $800 million) to digitize these collec- English. In each case, the languages available on ians from Pakistan and Mongolia have created tions. NYPL CEO Paul LeClerc called the Google deal any given catalog’s search screen are also provided. entries for their respective countries. Additional “one of the most transformative events in the history Online union catalogs are useful to scholars collaboration from others, whether here or from of information distribution since Gutenberg.” and librarians alike because they offer access to the around the world would be most welcome in order to Publishers couldn’t help but take notice. After all, bibliographic records from often hundreds of provide authoritative information for countries not yet Google surpassed Microsoft as the world’s most visited libraries, all searchable from a single Web site.

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