UNH’s Dimond Library expands access to the Web

“A Retrospect,” poetry by Lydia Frances Camp in a Granite Monthly magazine published 105 years ago, begins with the lines, “From the dim and distant past / Through the mist that time has cast / Visions oft before me rise—Scenes which met my youthful eyes.”

How fitting that this magazine and thousands of other documents from the past are not only available at Dimond Library at the University of New Hampshire, but are now accessible online.

Before this fall, many of these documents could only be obtained by visiting the library, but UNH is in the process of creating a digital collection to provide universal access to unique research materials. The initiative is a partnership with the Open Content Alliance and the Boston Library Consortium, of which UNH is one of 19 members.

The physical copies of the documents are sent to a scanning center at Boston Public Library. Staff at the scanning center provide digital copies for the school’s online collection and deposit a copy in the Internet Archive. It costs about $50,000 per year to have the materials electronically archived, but Sherry Vellucci, dean of Dimond Library, says it would cost even more if not for the consortium. It ends up being about 10 cents per page for high-quality color scans using a non-damaging book cradle and camera, she said. 

“It’s important to have the support,” Vellucci said. “The consortium organized the project and put together the resources for the scanning operation.”

Presently, the library is scanning works it already owns, such as town reports for Durham. So far, UNH has scanned about 1,700 volumes and plans to scan thousands of other books during the next two years. The works are primarily New Hampshire history books, state documents and university publications.

Dimond Library and the consortium are also looking to maintain open access to information that is in the public domain or no longer copyright protected. They are seeking to ensure that digital works remain open and aren’t restricted by Internet companies that require use of their own proprietary search engines or may charge for access.

That includes research done by faculty members and students at UNH. Currently, their work is published in journals owned by large publishers who require UNH to subscribe to the journals to have access to the research articles.

It’s expensive for the library to access the research subsidized by its own school and government grants, Vellucci said. One vendor alone can cost close to $1 million in a year. One journal can be $30,000 per year, she said. Publishers like Elsevier don’t allow authors to retain copyright for their work and don’t allow the authors to post a copy of their articles on their own Web sites.

Harvard University recently adopted a policy mandating that faculty members deposit their scholarly articles in an open-access repository to be made available to the public. Dozens of universities around the country are doing the same, and Vellucci is leading a similar initiative at UNH.

Vellucci said authors shouldn’t have to relinquish their rights to publishers, but should instead put their work in an institutional repository. A UNH repository could be ready as early as next year, depending on funding. A symposium on open access to scholarly communication will take place at UNH in the spring.

Eleta Exline, the digital collection librarian at UNH, said open access has been a problem for a long time and the solution is just now becoming clear. “This is our intellectual life,” she said. “This is the reason we’re here. Our work becomes less relevant if we can’t let others access it and build off it.”

Some of the older documents that used to be checked out once or twice a year have already been looked at more than 100 times since going digital. But the library has seen an increase in foot traffic, as well. Library gates counted a 24 percent increase this September compared to September 2007.

One reason may be the availability of computers, and Vellucci said the library needs more. A free scanner has also become popular among students. The five-story library has areas for different kinds of studying, including a computer lab, quiet reading rooms and small group space. But, no doubt, the new café has contributed to higher numbers, too.

Because the library doesn’t have the funding to expand, Vellucci said she is considering ways of repurposing the existing space. Also, the library has cut back on subscriptions to print journals and periodicals, which will now be available online.

To access Dimond Library’s digital collection, go to www.library.unh.edu or see www.archive.org/details/University_of_New_Hampshire_Library.