The Future of MOA
Plans are underway to expand MOA to include other major research
libraries. The institutions represented in the National Digital Library
Federation have agreed to explore using MOA as a model for
multi-institutional cooperation in developing a distributed digital
library.
In addition, the resource will continue to improve along several different
fronts.
- The University of Michigan Library received a grant from the Mellon foundation to continue adding to the Making of America and to document the costs of building online text systems. Approximately 7,500 volumes were be added to the collection in 2000 and 2001.
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Further integration with the Making of America materials at Cornell
University (http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/) is a high priority.
- Migration from "raw" to "cooked" can take place gradually, based on
the availability of resources and specific demands. The Humanities Text
Initiative, a part of the Digital Library Production Services at the UM,
will undertake the process of proofing OCR and refining markup based on
user demand. In the next year, the Humanities Text Iniative will be encoding dozens of the volumes of poetry in MoA as part of the complementary American Verse project.
- The UM Library will be incorporating digital conversion into its
Preservation Department's "Brittle Books" program. New materials will
be added to the MoA site as they are converted.
- We hope to work with other institutions and funding agencies to
make more significant additions to the MoA site. Please send
expressions of interest to
moa-feedback@umich.edu.