Shipped the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Collection to Google to be digitized as part of the joint agreement negotiated by the 12-university consortium known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). In a nod to the value of the collection, Google named it their first “collection of distinction.” The collection is the largest of its kind in North America.
Contributed content to the shared digital library known as HathiTrust, which has nearly doubled in size since it was announced just over a year ago, now containing more than 3.8 million volumes. Launched jointly by the CIC and the 11 university libraries of the University of California system, HathiTrust provides libraries a means to archive and provide access to their digital content. IU has taken a leadership role in its creation and governance.
Collaborated with peers to leverage negotiations with publishers and exert influence over the scholarly publishing market. One example: the CIC libraries jointly licensed, at considerable cost savings, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, a searchable database of every book published in Great Britain in the 18th century.
Hired a film archivist, a new position, to help fill a critical campus need to assess, care for, and provide access to film collections. The appointment supports the university’s plans to create a state-of-the-art cinema facility and follows a highly valuable media preservation survey produced by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.
Celebrated a series of events documenting the Great Depression to recognize the importance of archives and special collections to teaching and research. Academic libraries, increasingly homogenized by widely available electronic collections, will distinguish themselves largely by their unique holdings.
Honored Jessica Reddick and Erin Chapman with the Sam Burgess Undergraduate Library Student Research Award, given to undergraduates who show extraordinary skill in the use of library collections or services. Supported by an endowment, the award is now in its fifth year.
Released open-source software to support access to music collections. Thanks to the Digital Library Program, libraries worldwide can now provide secure online access to their digitized sound recording and score collections along with interactive tools to support teaching and learning. The software was developed by IU as the Variations digital music library with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and National Science Foundation.
In an ongoing commitment to digitize local materials, the Digital Library Program completed projects to make Indiana documents available online. Among them: the speeches of IU presidents Herman B Wells and William Lowe Bryan; archival collections of the Working Men’s Institute in New Harmony, Ind., the oldest public library in the state; and, with the Law Library, selected historical proceedings from the Indiana General Assembly (1858-1887).
