If you are attending the upcoming American Library Association meeting in
Washington D.C., please consider attending a panel discussion on Sunday,
June 24, from 10:30 AM - 12 Noon entitled, "Libraries as Digital Publishers:
A New Model for Scholarly Access to Information."  The panel will be this
year's program for the Digital Library Technologies Interest Group, and will
be held in the Grand Hyatt room Independence H-1.  

In this new model for mass digitization and digital publishing, libraries
retain control of the digitized versions of their collections (in contrast
to the Google Print Project model).  This option allows libraries to
preserve their role as stewards of the intellectual assets represented by
their collections.

The DLTIG panel will include presenters from Emory University, Kirtas
Technologies, Amazon, and several other research libraries.  DLTIG business
meeting and elections will follow the panel presentation.  

The following press release provides more information and context for this
event.  Hope to see you there!

--------------------- Press Release ---------------------------

EMORY PARTNERSHIP BREAKS NEW GROUND IN PRINT-ON-DEMAND BOOKS

Emory University is launching a new model for digital scholarship through a
partnership with Kirtas Technologies, Inc., a maker of cutting-edge digital
scanning technology. Once digitized, the books will be made available on
Amazon.com as well as other book distribution channels.

The partnership will enable Emory to apply automated scanning technology to
thousands of rare, out-of-print books in its research collections, making it
possible for scholars to browse the pages of these books on the Internet or
order bound, printed copies via a fast, affordable print-on-demand service.

"We believe that mass digitization and print-on-demand publishing is an
important new model for digital scholarship that is going to revolutionize
the management of academic materials," said Martin Halbert, director for
digital programs and systems at Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Library.
"Information will no longer be lost in the mists of time when books go out
of print. This is a way of opening up the past to the future."

Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Library is one of the premier research libraries
in the United States, with extensive holdings in the humanities, including
many rare and special collections. To increase accessibility to these aging
materials, and ensure their preservation, the university purchased a Kirtas
robotic book scanner, which can digitize as many as 50 books per day,
transforming the pages from each volume into an Adobe Portable Document
Format (PDF). The PDF files will be uploaded to a Web site where scholars
can access them. If a scholar wishes to order a bound, printed copy of a
digitized book, they can go to Amazon.com and order the book on line.

Emory will receive compensation from the sale of digitized copies, although
Halbert stressed that the print-on-demand feature is not intended to
generate a profit, but simply help the library recoup some of its costs in
making out-of-print materials available.

Materials in Emory's collections that are rare and unique to the history of
the university and the South are currently being digitized as part of a
pilot project. The university expects the print-on-demand feature for these
targeted materials to become available by the fall semester. Altogether, the
university houses more than 200,000 out-of-print volumes that were published
before 1923.

Emory was already on the leading edge of digital scholarship, as one of the
first universities to establish a major online peer-review journal. In the
two years of its existence, Emory's Internet journal Southern Spaces
(southernspaces.org) has grown into a dominant force in the Southern studies
field, attracting scholars from around the world to its forums and
interactive, multi-media features. 

Visitors to Southern Spaces can actually see and hear Southern writers
reading from their works, in the actual settings of those works. A video of
Emory's Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey, for example, shows
her reading "Elegy for the Native Guards" while standing amid the dunes of
Shipp Island, Mississippi, where the poem is set.

"Mass digitization and print-on-demand capabilities represent another
quantum leap forward for digital scholarship at Emory, opening up whole new
arenas of possibilities," Halbert said. 

In addition to making out-of-print books more accessible, Emory librarians
envision the university's mass digitization and print-on-demand capabilities
expanding the range of more current scholarly materials.

"The Emory libraries plan to use the program to support an array of
scholarly publishing needs of our campus," said Rick Luce, vice provost for
libraries at Emory. "We will be providing new opportunities for our faculty
and students to disseminate their work, if they choose to do so, under the
Emory banner."

As chair of the American Librarian Association's Digital Library
Technologies Interest Group, Halbert will be leading a panel discussion at
the ALA annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on June 24, entitled, "Libraries
as Digital Publishers: A New Model for Scholarly Access to Information."

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: A demonstration of this digital scanning process will
be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, June 7 at Woodruff Library. Please contact
Elaine Justice, 404-727-0643, [log in to unmask] for more information.


###

Emory University is one of the nation's leading private research
universities and a member of the Association of American Universities. Emory
is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of
arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art
research facilities. Emory is ranked as one of the country's top 20 national
universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools,
the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate
Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most
comprehensive health care system. To access News@Emory RSS feeds, go to:
http://news.emory.edu/Releases/RSSFeeds1124313225.html.


--------------------- End Press Release -----------------------

Best regards,
 
Martin Halbert, PhD, MLIS

Director for Digital Programs and Systems 
Robert W. Woodruff Library
540 Asbury Circle
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

(ph)    404-727-2204 
(fax)   404-727-0827
(web)   http://martin.library.emory.edu
(email) [log in to unmask]

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.  
- Okakura Kakuzo

You can't choose the ways in which you'll be tested.   
- Robert J. Sawyer