First digital initiatives site launched

We are extremely happy to announce the “soft launch” of our first digitization initiative.  Peace and War in the 20th Century is a collaboration between McMaster, Hamilton Public Library and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  The URL for the project is:  http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca/  It’s still under development so any comments would be welcomed!

We’ve chosen drupal for our platform.  Anonymous users can access all of the collections.  Registered users (anybody can register) can access all of the collections, comment on records, vote comments up or down (kinda like digg), use the Curate It! feature (digg like feature), and utilize the account based bookmarking (Bookbag) to save records for later viewing.  It also includes a faceted search feature like Endeca.  The site is also OAI-PMH compliant and has been harvested by U of Michigan and UIUC.

This is our first major digitization effort.  More to come!

McMaster: Charter member in newspaper digitization program

(Press release from Readex)

Readex partners with Center for Research Libraries
to create Web-based World Newspaper Archive

Digitization effort will feature thousands of historical newspaper titles published outside the United States

JUNE 26, 2008 (NAPLES, FL) — , a division of NewsBank, and the  (CRL) announced today that they will create the world’s largest, fully searchable digital archive of international newspapers. The World Newspaper Archive will provide students, teachers and scholars unprecedented access to historical newspapers published outside the United States, advancing research and offering new insights across wide-ranging academic disciplines.

“NewsBank offers the greatest combination of expertise and capabilities to provide our members sustainable access to historical news content,” says Bernard F. Reilly, president of the Center for Research Libraries. “By partnering with its Readex division in this cooperative effort, we plan to systematically digitize and deliver over the Web the foreign newspapers held by CRL and other major newspaper repositories.“

This uniquely comprehensive electronic resource will first offer Latin American newspapers published between 1805 and 1922 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and other countries. Further series will focus on historical newspapers published in Africa, South Asia and other areas. Users will be able to seamlessly cross-search the World Newspaper Archive with , including Early American Newspapers and Hispanic American Newspapers.

“Readex and the Center for Research Libraries share a commitment to provide sustainable online access to primary source research collections,” says David Braden, Readex president. “We are delighted to be working in cooperation with CRL—one of the world’s largest and most important newspaper repositories—to launch this landmark digital project and expand opportunities to discover these primary resources.”

The initial Latin American series will offer approximately 35 titles, encompassing nearly one million pages. Among the newspapers expected to be included are La Prensa (Buenos Aires), O Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo), Mercurio (Santiago), La Prensa (Havana), Diario de Centro America (Guatemala City), Daily Chronicle (Georgetown, Guyana), Mexican Herald (Mexico City), El Peruano (Lima), Port of Spain Gazette (Port of Spain), and theVenezuelan Herald (Caracas).

“International newspapers have long been highly valued by students and researchers in the humanities and social sciences,” says Glenda Pearson, Human Rights Librarian and Head of Newspaper Collections at the University of Washington. “This exciting joint project between CRL and Readex will advance scholarly inquiry, while ensuring worldwide access to these invaluable publications for generations to come.”

Participating members of CRL will enjoy permanent access to the World Newspaper Archive, while all others around the world will be offered access by Readex. Charter CRL participants now include Harvard University; McMaster University; New York Public Library; Princeton University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; University of Texas; University of Washington; and Yale University.

About the The Center for Research Libraries is an international partnership of over 240 universities, colleges and independent research libraries. CRL supports advanced research and learning in the humanities, sciences and social sciences by ensuring the survival and accessibility of source materials vital to those disciplines.

About , a division of For more than 50 years, the Readex name has been synonymous with research in historical materials and government documents. Recognized by librarians, students and scholars for its efforts to transform academic scholarship, Readex offers a wealth of Web-based collections in the humanities and social sciences, including the Archive of Americana and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports.

For more information or to speak with a Readex expert, contact Readex Marketing Manager David Loiterstein by calling 203.421.0152 or emailing dloiterstein@readex.com.

Local Newspaper Publishes Article on Russell Journal

The Hamilton Spectator published an article today on the digitization of the Russell Journal. The journal is our first foray into e-publishing. Congratulations go to Ken Blackwell and Anne Pottier who worked hard to make this happen!

Grant received: Peace and War in the Twentieth Century

The University Library is pleased to announce that we were successful in our recent grant application. The project, which will digitize collections related to Peace and War in the 20th Century, is a collaboration with Hamilton Public Library and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. The funding is provided by the Canadian Memory Fund, through the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canadian Culture Online Program. Special congratulations go to Carl Spadoni and Kathy Garay for leading the application.

Digital Strategies Librarian appointed

The University Library is pleased to announce the appointment of Nicholas Ruest to the position of Digital Strategies Librarian. Nick comes to us from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he will be graduating from the IMLS-funded program for “Recruiting 21st Century Digital Projects Librarians”. Nick’s official start date is September 4, 2007. Nick’s primary responsibility will be for managing our digital library initiatives. In particular, he brings strong technical skills; experience with libraries, archives, and museums; experience with multimple formats, including three-dimensional; and a personal interest in digital music.

Digital WWI

The McMaster University Library has entered into a partnership with perimeterdigital of Toronto to provide imaging services for the conversion of 427 WWI trench maps and 478 WWI aerial photos.

In the early 1970’s McMaster University Library acquired a World War I collection which included 425 World War I military maps produced by the British Ordinance Survey (Military Survey). They range in scale from very detailed operations maps used for trench raids to very broad overview maps used to show the entire Front. The majority, however, is made up of 1:10,000, 1:20,000 and 1:40,000 scale “trench” maps used primarily by the artillery and officers of the line. The builk of the collection is from the years 1917 and 1918. The collection has specific Canadian interest, as the maps cover primarily the Canadian sector of the Front during this time period. By this time, Canadian troops were the elite forces and in the vanguard of “The Final Push”. Currently, this collection is only available for consultation by researchers who visit McMaster and then only during the Library ’s hours of opening. We are quite pleased to be launching into this new partnership that will provide universal access to these rare materials. Watch this space for an announcement when the project has been completed and is ready for use!

In particular, I would like to thank Cathy Moulder and Gord Beck for making this happen.

Perry Willett, University of Michigan

On November 13, 2006 Perry Willett from the University of Michigan visited McMaster’s libraries. He gave two presentations on digitization and the Google project. PDF’s of his presentations can be found at:

digitization.pdf

google.pdf