Resource of the Week
by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

If you’ve been with us awhile, you know how much we enjoy digital collections. We also like “one-stop-shopping” sites, and if you’re with us on this, we’ve got a terrific resource for you this week.

Digital Libraries–Databases
Source: Grainger Engineering Library, University of Illinois/Institute of Museum and Library Services
IMLS Digital Collections Registry
We gave this one a brief mention on ResourceShelf a week or so ago, but we felt it warranted a closer look. “The IMLS Digital Collections Registry includes digital collections created or developed as part of one or more National Leadership Grant projects. These collections include both traditional digital library collections of digitized content and “born-digital” resources and non-traditional collections such as learning modules designed for online use. The collections have been created both through innovative collaborations among large numbers of institutions and through the work of a single institution. In many cases the digital content is an important by-product of other foci of the NLG project such as training, research, or education.”

More than 130 digital collections are featurered here now, each fully described via the IMLS DCC Collection Description Metadata Scheme, based on the UKOLN RSLP Collection Description Metadata Scheme and the Dublin Core Collection Description Application Profile.

Now that we’ve gotten the geeky stuff out of the way, let’s take a look at the content. The home page is pretty self-explanatory; you can browse the collections by:
+ Subject (Arts, Educational Technology, Foreign Languages, Health, Language Arts, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physical Education, Religion, Science, Social Studies, Vocational Education)
+ Object (Dataset, Image, Interactive Resource, Moving Image, Physical Object, Sound, Text)
+ Place (countries, cities, states)
+ Collection Title (alphabetical)
If you’re so inclined, you can also browse by National Leadership Grant Project (alphabetical) or Hosting Institution (alphabetical by state).

There’s a simple keyword search form on the home page. An advanced search form allows you to restrict your keyword search to a particular type of object. (More than one type may be selected via checkboxes.) The search results include collections and hosting institutions.

For each collection, there is a link to its home page, a brief annotation and a link to a full record containing the title, URL, description, GEM subjects, standard subject entries, geographic coverage, time period, objects included, format, intended audience, intereaction with collection (e.g., search, browse), size, frequency of additions, metadata schema used, supplemenetary materials, hosting institution and more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.