Oxford Digital Library

Project Description:

Between 2001 and 2011, the Oxford Digital Library (ODL) was established as a core service of Oxford University Library Services (OULS) -- now, the Bodleian Libraries. The main tasks of the ODL were to establish the frameworks and standards necessary to support the digitization of Library holdings, and to build a critical mass of high quality digital materials. Thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, a Development Fund was established to enable some 20 digital and digitization projects, resulting in the creation of 17 new digital collections between 2001-05. Each of the Development Fund projects was selected by an Editorial Board of academics and librarians, Chaired by Prof. Kathryn Sutherland. The collections were temporarily mounted on a beta site, using a local implementation of the Greenstone Digital Library software, created by Richard Gartner. Subsequent ODL work relied upon a combination of base funding from the Bodleian Libraries, complemented by substantial external grants for specific projects (e.g.EEBO-TCP, the JISC-funded mass digitization project to digitize a substantial portion of the John Johnson Collection of printed ephemera in association with ProQuest; the Library's participation in the Google Book Search Library Programme; the PARADIGM and CAIRO projects to examine aspects of digital preservation and archiving etc). The work of the ODL laid the foundations for many of the digitization projects that are being undertaken in the Bodleian LIbraries today. In 2005 the ODL became part of the Bodleian Libraries Department of Special Collections, and in 2011 was merged with the Systems & e-Research Services (SERS) department, to create the Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services department.