Vision

From Digital Innovations @ Emory Libraries

Digital innovations are the driving force behind the sweeping changes now occurring throughout academia and society generally. Revolutionary new capabilities for research and communication are being provided by organized web content, search engines, and the enormous range of electronic services that have appeared within the last two decades.

Digital Innovations is the first goal area of the Emory University Libraries Strategic Plan for the 2008-2012 period. It represents a major new direction and emphasis of Emory's libraries on realizing the promise for library users of innovative new digital services in the 21st century.

[edit] Summary from Emory Library Strategic Plan

Innovative and robust digital information services and resources will establish Emory as a leader in the development and deployment of digital information resources and services, and among the top tier digital libraries in the country by 2012. To achieve this goal, the Library plans to establish an Informatics Research Center; create an Institute for Digital Scholarship, which will encompass a Digital Press and a Certificate Program in Digital Scholarship and New Media; and raise an endowment to support these efforts. The digital production and management of information is central to the redefinition of university libraries. Through digitization and the development of new tools and systems for information management, libraries are poised to play a pivotal role in the production of knowledge, replace university presses as 21st century disseminators of knowledge, and contribute to the internationalization of scholarship by building and integrating access to global resources. Emory seeks to advance this evolution through digital initiatives that increase connections between people and build on the Library’s role as a meeting ground for scholars.

[edit] How Digital Innovations Gain Distinction for Emory

The digital production and management of information is central to the user services provided by university libraries, as well as to modern scholarship itself. Through digitization initiatives and the development of new tools and systems for information management, libraries are poised to play a pivotal role in the production of knowledge, replace university presses as disseminators of knowledge, and contribute to the internationalization of scholarship by building access to global resources. Emory seeks to advance this evolution through a variety of innovative services and projects that build on the Library’s traditional role as a meeting ground for scholars seeking to acquire, organize and produce knowledge. Instead of reducing human interaction, digital information systems can cultivate connections between people and foster their ability to understand and investigate. Indeed, digital innovations can provide fundamental new modes of communication which allow scholars to express themselves in powerful new ways. As part of this work, the Library, in collaboration with both internal and external partners, will promote the broad, equitable, and effective dissemination of the scholarship that is generated by the university community.

Emory is already a leader in the broad area of digital information technology and has made many distinctive contributions to the Digital Library Federation, the field of digital scholarly communications, and the training of professionals to manage libraries in this new environment. The strategic initiatives described here will enable Emory to capitalize on these previous accomplishments in dramatic new ways. An Informatics Research Center and an Institute for Digital Scholarship will build on these strengths and contribute to field that will have a tremendous impact on the future of higher education.

[edit] Accomplishments to Date

The digital library initiatives of Emory University are well known throughout the United States, and indeed are starting to attract attention in extended global research communities. Emory has attracted a steady stream of sponsored funding from private and public foundations for this work, and has been able to successfully construct a program in which projects build on prior accomplishments systematically. The following are highlights of these programmatic advances:

• Scholarly Portal Innovations (four projects funded by more than $1.6M from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation): These projects (Cyberinfrastructure for Scholars, MetaCombine, AmericanSouth, and first MetaArchive project) enabled Emory to build a broad foundation of knowledge, expertise, and recognition in the various aspects of creating scholarly communication portals based on metadata harvesting and automated organization of records. Emory worked collaboratively with more than two dozen other academic libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations in the course of these projects, and gained a reputation as a leader in this area.
• Digital Preservation Networks (more than $1.2M in funding from cooperative agreements with the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program): The MetaArchive Cooperative Network is a multi-insitutional collaborative program for digital preservation of cultural heritage materials. It is one of the eight national collaborative centers of the NDIIP program operated by the Library of Congress, and will soon be expanding to international coverage in terms of participating institutions and content.
• Interdisciplinary Digital Scholarship (more than $324K in grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities): The TransAtlantic Slave Trade Database is a comprehensive resource provided searchable and analytic access to more than five centuries of slave trade voyages. It represents an integrated approach to interdicisplinary scholarship in the broad topic of forced intercontinental migration of African populations to the Americas.
• Digital Library Interoperation (more than $425K from the National Science Foundation): The OCKHAM Library Network was a project of the National Science Digital Library, and comprised experiments in inter-institutional digital library interoperation. It brought Emory into the NSDL community, and facilitated a new focus between Emory and collaborative allies on innovative approaches to collaborative cyberinfrastructure, which has since become a focus of the NSF as a whole.
• Collaborative Library Research (three projects funded for more than $254K from the Institute for Museum and Library Services): Emory has participated in several projects funded by the IMLS National Leadership Grants program, all of which have been focused on collaborative research with other libraries, museums, computer science departments, and cultural heritage organizations. These projects have enabled the Emory digital library program to broadly understand the process of conducting successful collaborative research, positioning Emory to act in leadership roles nationally and internationally.
• Institutional Repositories (approximately $100K in strategic funding from Emory University): Finally, the Emory Libraries have received initial funding to establish an institutional repository program. This work has led to the creation of an Electronic Thesis and Dissertations archiving program at Emory, providing the foundation for many IR enhancement projects in the future.