News Release

UNC library, school first of kind
to join Open Content Alliance

CHAPEL HILL — Two members of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill family have joined efforts to build a permanent archive of digitized text and multimedia materials on the World Wide Web.

The University Library and the School of Information and Library Science recently joined the Open Content Alliance (www.opencontentalliance.org/), a group of organizations from around the world that are constructing the archive.

The school is the first from a university to join the alliance; the library is the first library to contribute manuscript materials.

Collections included in the archive are freely available for access and re-use by all, provided they respect the rights of content owners and contributors.

The library initially will focus on a potential project to digitize manuscripts from its Southern Historical Collection.

"These are unique items such as letters, notes, diaries, handwritten records, even photos," said Sarah C. Michalak, university librarian and associate provost for University Libraries. "They are fragile, sometimes they’re hard to read, and they can be very difficult to convert to digital form. But each one tells a unique story. Making them available through the Open Content Alliance for the world to use is an exciting opportunity."

Besides documents, the library will contribute expertise acquired through its "Documenting the American South" Web site and related projects, Michalak said.

"Since we launched DocSouth in 1996, we have committed ourselves to free and open access," she said. "The e-mails of thanks we receive from all over the world make it clear why libraries need to share their treasures this way and make it easy for people everywhere to use them."

The School of Information and Library Science has been researching, developing and providing open source, open digital content through projects including:

• ibiblio, one of the world’s largest freely available collections on the Internet, originally established as SunSite – one of the first Internet servers ever created, soon after development of the Web;
• the Interaction Design Lab, which facilitates research and development in electronic information environments such as digital libraries and electronic publications;
• the Metadata Research Center, which researches means for enhancing access to preserving and managing digital content; and
• the Open Video Project, a shared digital video collection that includes the entire NASA collection. Video of Alan Shepherd golfing on the moon, educational videos about the space shuttle and NASA’s Kids Science News Network are among items in NASA’s collection.

School faculty will collaborate with the alliance on research and participate on alliance committees, as will UNC librarians.

"This joint initiative will allow us to expand the capability and influence of our research while engaging our students in a living lab enhancing their educational experience," said Dr. José-Marie Griffiths, professor and dean of the school. "We can provide expertise in the areas of digitization not only of books, but also of video and multimedia, metadata design and development and digital curation and preservation.

"The Open Content Alliance is based on the fundamental principles of openness. We are delighted to participate in an effort that will expand the availability of and access to open content."

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University Libraries contact: Judith Panitch, (919) 962-1301 or panitch@email.unc.edu

School of Information and Library Science contact: Wanda Monroe, (919) 843-8337 or wmonroe@unc.edu