Digital Collection Cross-Server Sharing: A New Integrated Model and Technology for Building and Accessing Digital Libraries at Multiple Locations in Utah

Kenning Arlitsch
Head of Digital Technologies
University of Utah

Greg Zick
President
DiMeMa, Inc.

The Utah Academic Library Consortium (UALC) comprises the 15 college and university libraries in the state of Utah. Earlier this year the UALC funded a plan to create the Mountain West Digital Library. The goal of the Library is to put unique materials online in an integrated seamless manner that will provide a single point of access to these geographically distributed collections. Four centers established at the largest universities have a mandate to create digital collections and support the efforts of smaller libraries, museums, and historical societies in their geographical areas. The centers provide fee-based scanning, then return digital files to the client institutions, which add metadata and upload the files to one of the four centers’ CONTENTdm servers.

The challenge was to develop a system that allowed three layers of participation: 1) collection builders, 2) server providers, and 3) users searching multiple sites. To accomplish this UALC worked with the CONTENTdm software suite made by DiMeMa, Inc. With cooperation from the state library in the administration of LSTA funds toward this effort, a sustainable model of statewide digital library development is well underway.