American Libraries |
||
Site Navigation
Left Sidebar ItemsOnline Features
Follow American Libraries news stories, videos, and blog posts on Twitter.
|
||
MIT Libraries Blast Off into DSpaceThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology has added a Web-based electronic library to house its large number of scholarly documents that have been produced only in digital form. Called DSpace—the “D” stands for durable, digital, documents—the digital library was launched with the help of a $1.8-million grant in 2000 from the Hewlett-Packard company, which saw the project as a way to explore digital media systems, the Associated Press reported November 4. DSpace offers documents in a variety of formats, including text, audio, video, images, and databases. The system runs on open-source software developed in conjunction with HP so that other institutions can adapt the program royalty-free. Seven other universities—Cambridge, Columbia, Cornell, Ohio State, Rochester, Toronto, and Washington—are planning to link their own offerings in coming months. “The average lifespan of a digital document is only a few years,” MIT Libraries Director Ann Wolpert said. “So the goal here is to create the capability, the persistence, in works that are born digitally.” Currently, DSpace offers materials from the Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development; the Department of Ocean Engineering; the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems; the Sloan School of Management; and some out-of-print titles from MIT Press. Posted November 11, 2002. |
Right Sidebar
|
|
