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When surveyed about their needs, the Library's users rate access to full-text online as one of their highest priorities, so this partnership will enable us to respond to student and faculty expectations. Although Cornell has a long history of digitizing books for scholarly access, this project will make substantially more books available for these purposes much sooner than would otherwise be possible.
SELECTION
How many books are being digitized?
For the first year of the project, we are targeting to digitize around 100,000 monographs - English language and in public domain
How is the selection process made?
We continue to work on refining our selection policy. The first batch of materials sent were public domain monographs from Olin Library and Engineering Library that are in English. Some of the subject areas to be digitized in subsequent shipments include agriculture, American history, English literature, astronomy, food and wine, general engineering, the history of science, home economics, hospitality and travel, human sexuality, labor relations, Native American materials, ornithology, veterinary medicine, and women's studies.
What is not being selected?
Currently no copyrighted or non-English language books are under consideration for digitization.
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Our experience digitizing library material suggests that digitizing and making "low-use" material available online will boost their use and will increase the long-term returns on our investment in the purchase, storage, and maintenance of Cornell's extensive print collections.
Are books under copyright being scanned?
Currently we will not be scanning any copyrighted material.
USER IMPACT
How can I tell if a book is charged out to digitization?
The general public will able to tell that items are charged out, but it will not be apparent from the public catalog that these items are charged out for digitzation. Public service staff can assist users by accessing the MARC record in the online catalog. The 903 field in the MARC record will reflect that the book has been sent to be digitized. It will have "Kirtas" and the barcode in the field. For example: 903 __ |a Kirtas |d 20060901 |p 31924029885658
The 7th floor stacks are looking pretty empty. What is happening to the books once they are digitized? (who can answer this?)
How long will books be unavailable?
Books will be checked out for the project for up to 3 months. We hope as the workflow processes become smoother that the actual time the books will be out of the library will be shorter. If you request (hold/recall) a title that is checked out for this project, your request will automatically be transferred to Interlibrary Loan or Borrow Direct ensuring that you receive the title you need as quickly as possible.
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