OWU goes digital:
Library receives funds to integrate
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: News
Ohio Wesleyan University will receive $50,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to assist the library in developing digital technologies to benefit faculty and students.
The funding is part of a two-year, $600,000 grant awarded to The Five Colleges of Ohio, Inc., a consortium comprising Ohio Wesleyan, Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, and The College of Wooster.
The effort will involve identifying, building, and integrating digital collections centered on faculty research interests, materials from the five colleges' special collections and archives, and student publications.
In addition to enhancing access to hidden scholarly materials, objectives also include creating a professional development program for library staff, establishing a digital infrastructure to improve support for new initiatives, and developing a portal that will function as a gateway to the collections and related procedures and documents.
"The new frontier for academic libraries is developing digital collections and working with faculty to connect digital collections with curriculum and to utilize institutional repositories for preserving and storing materials," said Theresa Byrd, Ed.D., chief information officer and director of libraries. Byrd also serves as chair of the Library Committee for The Five Colleges of Ohio.
Ohio Wesleyan faculty and library staff already have begun work related to the grant, which is titled "Next Steps in the Next-Generation Library: Integrating Digital Collections into the Liberal Arts Curriculum."
According to university representatives, Ohio Wesleyan has been a leader in the development of digital collections among The Five Colleges group, with two digital collections completed to date: "The Branch Rickey Collection" and "Our Shared History: Delaware, Methodism, and Ohio Wesleyan University."
Editor's note: This information was submitted to The Transcript by the Office of Marketing and Communication.
The funding is part of a two-year, $600,000 grant awarded to The Five Colleges of Ohio, Inc., a consortium comprising Ohio Wesleyan, Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, and The College of Wooster.
The effort will involve identifying, building, and integrating digital collections centered on faculty research interests, materials from the five colleges' special collections and archives, and student publications.
In addition to enhancing access to hidden scholarly materials, objectives also include creating a professional development program for library staff, establishing a digital infrastructure to improve support for new initiatives, and developing a portal that will function as a gateway to the collections and related procedures and documents.
"The new frontier for academic libraries is developing digital collections and working with faculty to connect digital collections with curriculum and to utilize institutional repositories for preserving and storing materials," said Theresa Byrd, Ed.D., chief information officer and director of libraries. Byrd also serves as chair of the Library Committee for The Five Colleges of Ohio.
Ohio Wesleyan faculty and library staff already have begun work related to the grant, which is titled "Next Steps in the Next-Generation Library: Integrating Digital Collections into the Liberal Arts Curriculum."
According to university representatives, Ohio Wesleyan has been a leader in the development of digital collections among The Five Colleges group, with two digital collections completed to date: "The Branch Rickey Collection" and "Our Shared History: Delaware, Methodism, and Ohio Wesleyan University."
Editor's note: This information was submitted to The Transcript by the Office of Marketing and Communication.
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