Welcome to the University of Oregon Digital Library Services blog
This inaugural post describes some of what we do—a lot of different things! We hope you’ll return to learn more in future posts as we dive into different facets of digital libraries in greater detail.
The University of Oregon Libraries Digital Library Services (DLS) department was formed in 2023 as part of a strategic design process at the University of Oregon (UO) Libraries and brings together staff with expertise in multiple areas of digital stewardship to create, provide access to, and preserve digital objects to support learning at UO, in Oregon, and around the world. Our areas of specialization include digitization, digital object curation and management, project management, metadata, accessibility, discoverability, semantic web technologies, information architecture, user experience, digital preservation, copyright and intellectual property, and more. You can see the products of our work in various platforms on the web, whether you are a student or researcher at UO or halfway around the world.
Oregon Digital
Oregon Digital is a collaboration between the University of Oregon Libraries and Oregon State University Libraries and Press. Comprising more than 500,000 digitized and born-digital objects, this platform is a resource for scholarship and learning in diverse fields. One of the biggest drivers of growth for the UO collections in Oregon Digital is user requests for digitization of materials in the UO Libraries Special Collections and University Archives.
Historic Oregon Newspapers
Historic Oregon Newspapers is a free online database where you can search and access the complete content of over 2.4 million pages from 375 Oregon newspapers published 1846 through the present. These newspapers include titles published in cities and small towns from the Oregon coast to the eastern border, at high schools and colleges, and by and for African Americans, Native Americans, migrant workers, labor unions, and many other Oregon communities, and we are continually adding new titles.
The historic newspapers are digitized through the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program, which also provides access to materials through a born-digital preservation program. More than 30 publishers participate in this program at present, and it has made nearly 200,000 pages dating from 2015 available online.
The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is the newspaper digitization and digital preservation program for the state of Oregon. Based here at the University of Oregon Libraries in Eugene, the program has been digitizing Oregon newspapers since 2009 after receiving funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, and an in-house, self-sustaining digitization program was created in 2015 with funding from the State Library of Oregon. We work with partners across the state including public libraries, historical societies, museums, local groups, and private donors to digitize content with support from private, local, and state-level funding sources.
Over the last five years, our digital newspapers program has garnered over 10 million page views from users around the state, country, and world, completed 65 digitization projects, raised over $115,000 in funding with partners, and added over 80 titles to the Historic Oregon Newspapers platform.
Scholars’ Bank
Scholars’ Bank is an open-access digital archive for the scholarly and creative output of the University of Oregon community. Its mission is to preserve and disseminate the intellectual and creative output of UO’s faculty, staff, and students. UO faculty, staff, and graduate students can deposit published and unpublished research and other scholarly output in Scholars’ Bank, and departments can distribute working papers, technical reports, and other research material. If you’d like to share your work, please contact us.
Digital Exhibits
DLS also supports the creation of digital exhibits showcasing unique collections at the University of Oregon, with past support for exhibits funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and showcasing items from the UO Libraries and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Current DLS exhibits focus on fields including sports, religious history, and labor history. We currently use the open-source Spotlight software platform for digital exhibits.
Digital Production
Our digitization services unit creates high-quality digital versions for a wide variety of library resources. These digital assets are published online in platforms like those described here and preserved securely for the long term. In fiscal year 2024, this unit generated more than 50,000 digital images from 56 archival collections and 72 bound volumes, growing collections in Oregon Digital as well as Scholars’ Bank, for which they digitized 49 theses and dissertations which had only been available in print. Many of the digital resources were also directly provided to more than 150 UO Libraries patrons, fulfilling requests for remote access to archival materials. Digitized content is created in compliance with the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative four-star performance level and the Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement.
Thank you to the following people who contributed to this post:
- Catherine Flynn-Purvis, Scholar’s Bank Manager
- Elizabeth Peterson, Digital Collections Librarian and Program Manager, Oregon Digital Newspaper Program
- Emily Young, Digitization Specialist
- Julia Simic, Director, Digital Library Services
This is really helpful in understanding the work of digital librarians. It is well written, and I appreciate the ability to read more about individual areas. Thanks!