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CDL Site for the Public is Now Available

January 23, 2003 Author: CDLCategories:

On January 15, 2003, the California Digital Library website was released to the public at http://www.californiadigitallibrary.org/.  This service provides a single point of access to hundreds of digital collections and exhibits produced or managed by the libraries, museums, academic departments, and research units of the University of California.  It showcases many of the unique and innovative projects produced by UC libraries and is a first-step towards bringing together publicly accessible digital collections that are created and managed by UC.

The California Digital Library website offers a broad range of scholarly and popular content; the digital collections reflect the diverse interests and scholarship of the University of California.  By exploring collections, users can discover photographs, interviews, sound recordings, maps, historical documents, current articles, videos, sheet music, and more, on a diversity of subjects.  The CDL contracted with lii.org (Librarians’ Index to the Internet) to identify and describe high-quality digital resources that are created and managed by the University of California.

At launch, the search engine on the website also retrieves tens of thousands of images from the Online Archive of California and hundreds of UC Press books.  Its use of open digital library standards (XML, METS, Dublin Core) provides a flexible and robust platform for future growth.  The goal of this initial launch is largely proof of concept; it lays a foundation to add additional collections and services.  We know the site is incomplete at present and are depending on your assistance to help us identify the collections and exhibits we should include.  Please take a quick look at the collection development criteria (http://www.californiadigitallibrary.org/about/#4) and submit your suggested collection-level records to include to CDLPUBLIC-FEEDBACK-L@UCOP.EDU.  Future plans include investigation of adding campus created item-level records that are compliant with the OAI metadata harvesting protocol.