***Apologies for Cross Postings***

Press release

Digital libraries bridge the Atlantic

The hand-written annotations Charles Darwin made on 700 of the books in his
personal library were painstakingly transcribed in the 1980s. 
 
Now, thanks to high-resolution digital imagery and an international
partnership, Darwin's marginalia will be digitally married to the texts they
illuminate, allowing scholars to learn his thoughts on a wide range of topics.

The partnership is between Cambridge University library, the Darwin Digital
Library of Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History in New York,
the Natural History Museum in London and the Biodiversity Heritage Library
(a collective of ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical
libraries, and research institutions in the US and UK).
 
The project is supported by the JISC/NEH transatlantic digitization
collaboration grant programme offered by the NEH (National Endowment for the
Humanities) and JISC. 
 
The grant programme funds collaborative projects undertaken by scholars from
the US and UK who are working to develop new digitisation projects and pilot
projects, add important materials to existing digitisation projects, or
develop infrastructure (either technical "middleware," tools, or
knowledge-sharing).  
 
JISC programme manager Alastair Dunning said:  "The first phase of JISC /
NEH projects is generating substantial benefits for research communities on
both sides of the Atlantic, not just in terms of the resources created but
also in the skills shared between the communities. The second phase will
build on this, giving further evidence of the advantages to be gained
through international collaboration."
 
Last year, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that British and American
universities should cooperate 'at a far higher level' than they currently do.
 
"The development of digital tools has made cultural materials globally
accessible, making scholarship a worldwide enterprise," said NEH Chairman
Jim Leach.  "Recognizing these new technologies, we at NEH are committed to
facilitating international scholarly collaborations."
 
Additionally, other grants recently awarded through the JISC/NEH programme
will allow researchers to have access to archaeology collections previously
separated by the Atlantic and a shared online reading room for Islamic
manuscripts.
 
Awards for the projects range from approximately £135,000 to £200,000
($200,000 to $300,000) for a period of eighteen months starting September
2009.  The other projects are:
 
. The University of York and Arizona State University are bringing together
two large digital libraries related to archaeology so that both libraries
can be searched simultaneously.  A web services application will be
developed to allow researchers to cross-search metadata records held by
Archaeology Data Service (ADS) in the U.K. and The Digital Archaeological
Record (tDAR) in the U.S., covering the archaeology of England and the
United States. 
 
In a second stage, a richer and deeper cross-search web facility will be
developed for databases recording animal remains in England and the United
States, providing a valuable research tool for archaeologists in both countries.
 
. The School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London is working
with Yale University to bring ancient resources to life through a virtual
reading room for Islamic manuscripts; these will include Arabic and Persian
manuscripts by Arab philosophers, physicians and scientists alongside
relevant reference materials. The project will build a suite of tools that
will analyse the digitised manuscripts and cross-reference them with
supplementary materials, an infrastructure which will serve as a model for
other special collections and libraries rich in manuscripts and related
reference materials.

For more information on the National Endowment for the Humanities go to
<http://www.neh.gov/>

Find out more about the collaboration between JISC and the NEH at
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/jiscneh.aspx>


Carol Jackson
Administration and Events Manager
Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)
Innovation Centre, York Science Park, Heslington, YORK YO10 5DG
T: +44 (0) 1904 435 362 F: +44 (0) 1904 435 135
E: [log in to unmask] www.dpconline.org

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