-------- Original Message --------
Harvard to Contribute Special Collections Materials to Digital
Public Library of America
Harvard Library committed to expanding access to materials.
October 31, 2012—
The Harvard Library plans
to share several collections with the
Digital Public Library of America
(DPLA)—becoming the first DPLA
content
hub.
The Harvard Library contains a wealth of special collections, and
is dedicated to providing open access to them, where possible,
through digitization and online dissemination. Through its
collaboration with the DPLA, Harvard will contribute to global
access to knowledge by linking to select digitized special
collections.
Robert Darnton, Harvard University Librarian and DPLA Steering
Committee member, noted, “By making their special collections
available to the public through the DPLA, research libraries can
contribute mightily to the democratization of access to
knowledge. Harvard’s collections, built up since 1638, form the
largest university library in the country. By supporting the
DPLA, we will make the choicest items in them accessible to
everyone in America—and eventually, we hope, to everyone in the
world.”
In response to the DPLA’s call, the Harvard Library is actively
exploring what collections it could contribute. Work remains to
be done on various fronts before a final decision is made about
specific collections, but the Harvard Library looks forward to
making a number of its collections available to the DPLA. Among
them, the following have already been digitized and could be
available to the DPLA before its launch in April 2013:
- Colonial Harvard. An online guide and an expanding
digital data base with thousands of items—diaries, commonplace
books, correspondence, legal documents, University records,
drawings, maps, student notebooks, scientific observations and
lecture notes—that form the documentary history of Harvard and
serve as one of the great social history collections on the
evolving United States.
- Daguerreotypes. Harvard’s 3,500 daguerreotypes
gathered in an online collection. The images include some of
the earliest photographs of the moon, views of the first use
of ether and rare portraits of African-born slaves.
- Digital Scores and Libretti. First and early
editions and manuscripts of works by J.S. Bach (and family),
Mozart, Schubert and others.
- Zoology. The Jacques Burkhardt Collection comprising
976 scientific drawings of fish and miscellaneous vertebrates
and invertebrates. The collection also includes field notes,
correspondence, diaries, photographs and specimen records from
Louis Agassiz’s 15-month Brazil expedition in 1865-66.
- Digital Maps. Over 1,000 maps and atlases, many
georeferenced for use in GIS. Includes maps of New England
towns, London, China, pictorial maps by Ernest Dudley Chase,
fire-insurance and real-property atlases and maps from the
Revolutionary War.
- Trial Narratives. More than 450 pamphlets and
chapbooks printed in the United States and the United Kingdom
during the first half of the nineteenth century. They recount
trials for murder, rape, divorce, domestic violence, adultery,
bigamy, breach of promise to marry and the custody of
children.
- Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts. More than 75
rare works in English, French, German, Italian, and Greek.
From the collection of Houghton Library, these manuscripts
reflect a broad range of subjects in history, literature,
religion, science and geography. This selection also includes
richly illuminated books of hours used for private devotion.
Harvard holds the largest collection of the original manuscripts
of poems by Emily Dickinson. It is now assembling these
manuscripts and other material into a digital Emily Dickinson
Archive, which it could make available to the DPLA as well. And
as it pursues other digitization initiatives and reviews its
digital holdings, it may make additional material available.
Projects that could fall in this category include collections of
North American manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries, rare
Chinese works and materials from the Library’s Open Collections
Program.
"The Harvard Library is committed to collaboration and open
access. Earlier this year, the Library made more than 12 million
of its records publically available, and is actively pursuing
additional collaborative and open access projects. We hope this
contribution is one of many steps toward sharing the vital
cultural knowledge in libraries with all," said Mary Lee Kennedy,
Senior Associate Provost for the Harvard Library.
The DPLA is still taking shape, and Harvard’s collaboration with
it is contingent upon working out satisfactory arrangements on a
range of matters. The Harvard Library will ensure that any
materials made available by it through the DPLA do not infringe
copyright.
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Contact
Kira Poplowski
Director of Communications
The Harvard Library
617.496.3758
kira_poplowski
at harvard.edu