A collaborative project of the University of Michigan Library, Cornell University Library,
and the State and University Library Göttingen

PROJECT SUMMARY

This project will create a genuinely distributed repository of significant historical monographs in mathematics. The participation of these three institutions—The State and University Library Göttingen, Cornell University Library, and the University of Michigan Library—is significant not only because of their pioneering work in building digital libraries and conversion techniques, but because of their extraordinary collections in this area. Göttingen is recognized as a wellspring of mathematical thought, and its collections are unparalleled in this area. Michigan and Cornell have built two of the strongest mathematical collections in the United States, a strength long recognized by the mathematics community and reflected in the Research Libraries Group collections “Conspectus.” Cornell has digitized 576 volumes of mathematical monographs, and will generate OCR to enhance access to their materials. Michigan will fund the bulk of the conversion of an additional 1,000 monographic volumes focusing on non-Euclidean geometry from its collection. The State and University Library Göttingen will contribute digitized monographs, dissertations and multivolume works of the electronic Mathematical Archive and the database “Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik,” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Funding is sought primarily to develop an interoperability layer with the three strong digital library systems at these institutions. Each institution has robust online access mechanisms. The State and University Library Göttingen relies on the Agora system, combining rich metadata mechanisms and strong architectural components. The University of Michigan Library has developed full-text access mechanisms that it now distributes through its Digital Library eXtension Service, and which current supports the Michigan Making of America system, soon to hold approximately 3 million pages. Cornell University Library has delivered its text based collections through various systems, including those built on top of Dienst and those using the University of Michigan middleware, and within the frame of the funding will work to extend the Dienst-based Euclid system. We will work cooperatively to modify and extend these three architectures as we apply the current XML-aware version of the Dienst system to provide a high level of interoperability. The depth of the proposed collection and the experience of the participants will allow the project to focus on many of the domains within the scope of the call for proposals, including distributed repositories, advanced access and retrieval, high levels of interoperability, and encouragement of the free flow of information. Project funding will result in three important outcomes: the improvement of three key digital library efforts through improved sharing mechanisms, a large and important collection of historical mathematical materials, and a valuable case study in integrating distributed resources.