University of Michigan Digital Library Initiatives

History	Launched in 1993 by the Information Technology Division, the School of Information, and the University Library. Organizational model based on complementary expertise, with capability for research activity to transition to production environment.
Focus	Projects which build digital collections and access tools. Provides capabilities and services for UM units and individuals to develop digital content. Provides frameworks to coordinate distributed campus information resources and facilitate sharing digital content. Catalyst for addressing information policy, publishing, and economics issues on campus.
Organizational Structure	Jointly funded by University Library, School of Information, and Information Technology Division; additional support from the Media Union, OVPR, Academic Outreach, University Press, and external funding agencies. Three dean/directors of partner units serve as advisory council. Digital Library Production Service (http://www.umdl.umich.edu/) created in 1996, an organization with staff drawn from partner organizations. DLPS has been designed as an organization to move the University of Michigan from a "project model" to "production." It offers capabilities for development of new applications and programs, management of digital collections, and contract services for the conversion and management of digital collections.
Capabilities	Integration of content, information structure, and access system expertise. Design of functional and domain-based "knowledge environments." System development for digital information and access tools. Large-scale text and visual image resources (future: numeric and spatial data). Cost-effective conversion techniques using durable formats. Contract services for publishers, other campus information providers, other universities. Experience in business and organizational models for host services.

Additional background information can be found at:  <http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/DLI/>

SELECTED PROJECTS AND PROGRAMS
Humanities Text Initiative	The Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) is an umbrella organization for the acquisition, creation, and maintenance of electronic texts, as well as a mechanism for furthering the University's capabilities in the area of online text. Centered primarily around the development and maintenance of text resources in SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), the HTI provides access to a variety of reference and humanities resources. http://www.hti.umich.edu/
Image Services	The University of Michigan Digital Library Production Services (DLPS) is committed to providing image services to the UM community. DLPS Image Services provides to faculty, staff, and departments a standardized, base level, extensible architecture for putting images online.
Making of America	Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection contains approximately 5,000 books and journal volumes with imprints between 1850 and 1877. The project represents a major collaborative endeavor in preservation and electronic access to texts. The infrastructure created for MOA is now being used to support the Library's preservation efforts, making it possible for a selector to choose this online mechanism of the digital as an alternative to microfilm or other replacement formats. http://www.umdl.umich.edu/moa/
Middle English Compendium	The Middle English Compendium has been designed to offer easy access to and interconnectivity between three major Middle English electronic resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary; a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse, based on the MED bibliographies; and an associated network electronic resources, including a large collection of Middle English texts. Hypertext links offer quick connections between, e.g., an e-MED citation, bibliographical information about its source, and an electronic version of the source. http://www.hti.umich.edu/mec/
PEAK (Pricing Electronic Access to Knowledge)	The PEAK Information Service provides access to the 1100+ journals published by Elsevier Science. These journals include much of the leading research in the physical, life and social sciences. The PEAK project provides an opportunity for universities and other research to have electronic access to a large number of journals, access that allows for fast sophisticated searching, nearly instantaneous document delivery, and new possibilities for subscriptions. http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/peak/
SGML Server Program	A program of support for widely used encoded text collections is provided by the UM Digital Library Production Service. In addition to host services for a number of commercial humanities collections, the program offers middleware for local implementations and training workshops. http://www.hti.umich.edu/misc/ssp/
Contact Services	Services to develop access systems and host publisher content have been provided to several publishers, notably the Human Relations Area Files and the Association of Asian Studies' Bibliography of Asian Studies.

For additional information, contact Wendy P. Lougee <wlougee@umich.edu> or John Price-Wilkin <jpwilkin@umich.edu>