PALINET Mass Digitization Effort

Jumping on the text digitization bandwagon, the PALINET regional library network on October 21 announced its Mass Digitization Collaborative, supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Through the project, PALINET member libraries will be able to scan and digitize selected texts as the result of an ongoing partnership with the Internet Archive and its regional network of digitization centers.

Participants will receive high-quality versions of the digital editions, which will also be made freely available through Archive.org. The goal, according to Catherine C. Wilt, PALINET's executive director, is to make available more than “20 million pages of text from PALINET members,” equivalent to approximately 60,000 books.

Only works free of copyright restrictions and with existing metadata are eligible for the project. Moreover, member institutions are “strongly encouraged” to select unique texts and items of local and regional significance.

As more content becomes freely available online, many smaller and medium-sized institutions are digitizing local collections as a way to distinguish their services. For example, the University of Maryland, one of 13 pilot participants, will contribute 11 reels of microfilm containing the university's course catalogs from 1859 through 1945, aiming to document the history of Maryland Agricultural College through the end of World War II.