[Yulibl] This Digital Library -- 100,000 books to be digitized

[Meg Bellinger]

Dear Colleagues,

Yale University Library has signed an agreement 
with Microsoft Corporation to digitize 100,000 
books published in English and in the public 
domain.  Microsoft and Yale have selected 
<http://www.kirtas-tech.com/>Kirtas Technologies 
as the digitization vendor based on the 
excellence of their digitization equipment and 
processes.  Kirtas is a well established vendor 
to libraries, known for superior book handling 
and quality output, and successfully employed by 
YUL in the past for digitization 
projects.  Kirtas will establish a three-shift 
digitization center in the New Haven area 
utilizing eight robotic scanners equipped with state-of-the-art book cradles.

Microsoft will make the digitized books available 
through <http://books.live.com/>Live Search 
Books.  Click 
<http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books#q=art&filter=all&start=1&t=W0RzVXBxgWxccQ_pwoiWVw&sq=art>here 
for a demonstration of its rapidly developing 
capabilities. YUL will receive a complete set of the digitized books.

The Yale/Microsoft large-scale book digitization 
initiative represents the launch of a program 
that Alice Prochaska has actively pursued in 
order to achieve substantial benefits for the 
Yale community and for researchers worldwide.
    * Yale is committed to providing the widest 
possible access to its collections.  Digitization 
can virtually reunite collections that are 
physically housed in different repositories.  It 
enhances discoverability and promotes use of both 
the digital and the original object.
    * The full text of the digitized books will 
be indexed.  Full text searching enables 
researchers to locate relevant material that they 
could never find through traditional indexes or 
library catalogs (e.g. a single paragraph in a work on an unrelated topic).
    * Digitization will answer faculty requests 
for enhanced electronic access to scholarly 
materials and for increased student access to 
digital research and instructional materials.
    * Digitization will respond to the current 
generation of students – digital natives who 
expect material to be available in electronic form.
    * Digital files offer the opportunity to 
integrate research material with online teaching 
services (e.g. through Classes*v2) and with 
inter-institutional collaborative projects.
    * Availability of content in digital form can 
offer improved security by reducing handling of 
original rare or fragile material and by 
providing a fail-safe digital surrogate in the 
event that the original is lost through normal 
deterioration, theft, natural disaster, or other destructive event.
    * There is major benefit in being able to 
search Yale material in the context of larger 
multi-institutional collections.  In Live Search 
Books Yale collections will join those of partner 
institutions such as Cornell, the British 
Library, and the University of California, 
encouraging creative analysis and reuse of the combined assets.
We have the full support of the Provost’s office 
for this project and it is in keeping with 
President Levin’s mandate for Yale to cultivate 
and build a global digital presence for Yale.

We will hold information sessions in the next 
several months to keep staff and users informed 
and involved as this exciting project develops.

Meg



Meg Bellinger
Associate University Librarian for Integrated
Library Systems and Technical Services
Yale University Library

Sterling Memorial Library
130 Wall Street
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240
meg.bellinger at yale.edu
(203) 432-2068



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