Keeping up in the fast-paced digital technology world, the Dartmouth College Library recently announced a partnership with Readex, a Vermont-based company that specializes in online publications of historical collections.
In the agreement, Readex will digitize the College's U.S. Congressional Serial Set as part of Readex's Archive of Americana collection.
The Congressional Serial Set, which provides numerous primary sources from many aspects of American History, dates from 1817 to 1980. Although actual volumes from the Set are not rare, Readex chose Dartmouth's collection because of its completeness and condition.
Dartmouth acquired most of the set in 1884 when the College library became a Federal Depository Library.
"Dartmouth College Library's complete print edition of these collections remain well-preserved and bound in their original sheepskin," John Cocklin, government information librarian and project advisor to the Readex partnership, said in a publication by the Society of Early Americanists.
In return for use of the Set, Readex will give the library substantial discounts on subscriptions not yet purchased by the library.
Because of the age of the books, College librarians expect some wear and tear after the completion of Readex's project.
"There are expectations that there will be some damage from it," Project Manager of the Readex venture Barbara Sagraves said.
The project began a year ago and the early volumes through 1885 have already been digitized. The process is so gradual because of the difficulty of preparing 13,800 volumes.
The Library is currently preparing books for scanning using conservation methods that include refinishing the binding, patching the leather of the books and, in some cases, extracting large maps from the book's binding and reinserting the maps in specially made pockets. Dartmouth also refinishes the books upon their return from Readex.
Digitizing the U.S. Congressional set has some obvious advantages. Although the Series has been reprinted before on black-and-white microfilm, the new digital images allow for reproduction of the color and richness of the original maps and illustrations.
The digitization of the Series also gives better accessibility to future users, allowing for text searches that might not present themselves in the index.
"[The Set is] a fabulous resource. Everyone that has been involved in the process just gets drawn into it," Sagraves said.
The Dartmouth Library also cooperated with Readex in the digitization of the American State Papers, which were donated by former Senator Samuel Bell, Dartmouth class of 1793.
Digitized portions of the early U.S. Congressional Series and American State Papers are already available to students online through the Dartmouth College Library web site.
The Readex project is estimated to finish by 2008.
