Collection Development for the Digital Library

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Digital Library Projects
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Scholarly Commons@ Penn		ScholarlyCommons@Penn is our institutional repository pilot project, running during the 2004-2005 academic year. It provides a means for scholars at Penn to disseminate, publicize, and archive their work. Researchers and other interested readers can use it to learn about and keep up-to-date with Penn scholarship from anywhere in the world. For the 2004-2005 academic year, ScholarlyCommons@Penn will run as a pilot project sponsored by the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Is is still a work in progress and is expected to formally open in late 2004. Depending on the outcome of the pilot, the repository may expand to include other parts of the University. For more information, see the (currently under construction) ScholarlyCommons@Penn.web site.
The Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image (SCETI)		SCETI provides the scholarly community with web access to virtual facsimiles of original texts, documents, and sources from Penn's collections. These include printed books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, broadsides, ephemera, and recorded sound. Founded in 1996, SCETI continues to introduce new methods for producing and presenting of digital resources, such as its recent exhibit on Penn in Age of Franklin and the groundbreaking Cairo Genizah Fragment Project For more information, see the SCETI web site.
Online Image Collections		The Online Image Collections site makes images from Penn available in digital form, and catalogs them using enhanced MARC records. Images come from the Fisher Fine Arts Library slides, as well as other collections based on South Asia Studies, chemistry, Shakespeare studies, and the University Archives. Image metadata was converted from Minaret format, slide images were digitized, and a delivery system was produced as part of the digital images project. We are now working on a portfolio system to allow people to make selections from these collections available for classroom and research use. For more information, contact Delphine Khanna, our Digital Projects Librarian (delphine@pobox.upenn.edu).
Geographic Information Systems		A Geographic Information Systems initiative is now in the proposal stage. We hope to bring together spatially-based information, such as census data and city planning information, and present it through easy-to-use interfaces. For more information, contact Laurie Allen, reference librarian (laallen@pobox.upenn.edu).
Freedman Archive		The Freedman Archive Site is an example of the integration of digital and nondigital resources, and of the migration of digital technologies we will be supporting on a larger scale as the years progress. Users can visit the Freedman collection web site to browse and search a specialized catalog of recorded Jewish music (and selected digital samples), which can be consulted offline at the Archive itself. The digital catalog, using dBase IV tables with customized character encoding, has been migrated to web-searchable forms using standard Unicode encoding. The tools that enable this migration can be reused for other projects. For more information, contact John Mark Ockerbloom, our Digital Library Architect and Planner (ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu).
The History Books Online project		The History Books Online project made newly issued scholarly history books from Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press available electronically to the Penn community. The project studied digital book use and its impact on teaching, learning, and the economics of publishing. Over 700 books were made available. Some of this project's resources, including some sample books, are also being made available to the general public. A report of the project's findings will be available from here shortly. For more information, see the project's Penn-only or public preview web sites.
Electronic Journals Archive Planning		In 2001 and 2002, we undertook a Mellon-funded project to plan and prototype archives for electronic journals. Penn receives over 6000 electronic journals, and we are highly concerned about reliable, affordable long-term availability and usability of these journals. Our planning project focused on: working with academic presses clear statements of archival rights and responsibilities managing costs, aiming for as low as possible per volume support of replication, migration, verification, and transfer Our final report on the project is available at the Digital Library Federation web site For more information, contact John Mark Ockerbloom, our Digital Library Architect and Planner (ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu).
Other collections initiatives		Other collection initiatives we are working on include: PennSound: Recorded sound collection City planning electronic collection upgrades to SCETI and DLXS, and the Corporate Reports collection a management system for library exhibits and events export of our papyrus metadata to APIS For more information, contact John Mark Ockerbloom, our Digital Library Architect and Planner (ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu).