Penn holds off on digital initiative

Transforming books into digital resources may be the latest trend in the world of academic libraries, but Penn officials say it may be a while before Penn joins in on the fun.

HathiTrust - an initiative launched by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation as well as the 11 libraries of the University of California system - will grow to be a digital book repository for major research institution libraries.

In its initial stages, HathiTrust will rely on books already scanned for the Google Book Project, another digital book repository.

As far as Penn's involvement in the project goes, Martha Brogan, Van Pelt Library director of collection development and management, said Penn is still "only in the beginning stages of understanding how [HathiTrust] will operate."

She said in an e-mail that Penn is following HathiTrust's development and the University has "long-standing relationships with many of the institutions involved in this effort."

Penn is a member of the Digital Library Federation, a group of 36 research universities that has helped develop the standards of digital preservation.

Brogan wrote that although Penn isn't jumping in to HathiTrust quite yet, it is still a "hugely significant initiative."

"University libraries now possess a sufficient critical mass of digital content to aggregate it and build services on top of it that are geared to academic scholarly use," she wrote.

A similar book-scanning project, the Google Book Search, is also making headway at other universities, but officials say there are important differences between the two.

According to HathiTrust's Web site, it offers "expert curation" for the specific needs of research libraries, meaning that libraries have more control over how their books are scanned.

The University of Virginia Library began collaborating with the Google Book Project in November 2006.

Charlotte Morford, director of communications for the UVA library, said the digitization project has "been received very positively."

She added that most students and faculty found the tool a valuable resource.

Marjorie Hassen, director of public services for the Van Pelt Library, said HathiTrust will "complement" the Google Book Search, not compete with it.

The word "Hathi" (pronounced hah-tee) is the Hindi word for "elephant," an animal that officials say are symbols of memory and strength.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.