HathiTrust has been involved with the following grant projects:
2014
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant - CRMS-World
In 2014, University of Michigan received its third National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (see the press release) for copyright determinations work for the Copyright Review Management System. In addition to developing a toolkit for use by libraries worldwide, the project will work with HathiTrust and its partners to explore sustainability options of the copyright review process.
2011
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant - CRMS-World
In the fall of 2011, the University of Michigan Library received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Studies. The grant runs from December 2011 to November 2014 and is awarded for (1) the development and deployment of the CRMS-World system, and (2) for the continued performance of the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) originally funded by IMLS (2008-2011).
With this new IMLS award, the University of Michigan Library and its partners will continue to make copyright determinations for U.S. titles and in addition will make reliable copyright status determinations for foreign-published titles, which constitute a significant portion of the scholarly works being digitized by projects such as HathiTrust. We are assisted in this project by our sixteen partner institutions, who have all contributed staff time to the effort.
2010
Institute of Museum and Library Services grant – Validating Quality in Large-Scale Digitization: Metrics, Measurement, and Use-Cases.
Following a planning effort in 2009-2010 to outline a research methodology to evaluate quality of digitized books and journals in large digital repositories, dedicated work by an official project team began in late January 2011. HathiTrust will serve as the sampling source and the project will have two distinct phases:
- Research Phase 1 (approximately one year) – This phase will focus on defining the errors created during digitization and creating a severity scale to properly code the effect of error in regards to several different usability categories. This phase will also incorporate project logistics such as hiring and training of data coders, development of training materials and training processes, and development of application to serve up images and capture coded data. Aggregated test data will be gathered to evaluate processes to date and also serve as a guideline for creating a representative sampling strategy. Directed by the statistical analysis and the principal investigator, data gathering will continue throughout this phase to direct both research methodology and development of sample model.
- Research Phase 2 (approximately 12 – 18 months) – Using the error definition model developed in Phase 1, Phase 2 will focus on measurement of error including both frequency of defined error and severity as related to loss of content. Stratified samples of the collection will be analyzed to determine quality in different subsets of the collection. Continual evaluation of results will occur to assess coder consistency throughout the project. Use-case studies will be designed to evaluate the relationship of quality and four principal uses of large digital collection: Collection Development, Print on Demand, Text Mining, and Research.
As of April 1st, 2011, almost all of the goals outlined in Phase 1 have been achieved and the project team is currently refining the training processes, data collection application, and error definitions based on initial data analysis. The next several months will be spent collecting more data and creating sample strategy. Additional information about the project can be found in the initial grant news announcement. and the HathiTrust monthly updates beginning in March 2011
2009
- National Science Foundation EAGER grant, in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University and CLIR (the Council on Library and Information Resources) to explore the feasibility of an open access repository for NSF-funded research.
Summary from the Update on September 2009 Activities:
Sayeed Choudhury of Johns Hopkins University, John Wilkin of the University of Michigan, and Amy Friedlander of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) are co-PIs in an NSF EAGER grant to determine the needs and requirements for developing an open-access repository for publications arising from NSF-funded research. The PIs will leverage Johns Hopkins’ experience in evaluating digital repositories, HathiTrust’s experience with large-scale infrastructure and ingest of digital objects, and CLIR’s experience and facility in bringing together groups of experts to determine next steps and directions on targeted issues. CLIR will host a series of workshops focusing on technical requirements, business and policy concerns, and organization and operations issues relating to the open-access repository. Johns Hopkins and HathiTrust will evaluate various technical systems based on the recommendations from the workshops. The creation of a sustainable, efficient, and scalable model to deliver the products of NSF-funded research to users at no cost will have a transformative impact on the dissemination and use of this valuable work.
Update: This project received a one-year no-cost extenstion and will extend through August, 2011.
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant led by University of Michigan School of Information professor Paul Conway
Summary from the Update on October 2009 Activities:
With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Associate Professor Paul Conway of the University of Michigan is leading a one-year research and planning project to find and test new procedures for validating the quality and usefulness of digital objects in HathiTrust. The short-term goal of the project is to prepare and submit a funding proposal to a federal granting agency to explore possibilities for validating these characteristics through manual and automated methods. The long-term goal is to develop criteria and methods to brand the trustworthiness of volumes in HathiTrust and other digital repositories for fulfilling specific purposes (such as reading, printing volumes on demand, performing computational research, and others). Such a branding or certification process would give assurance that content within a repository is worthy of preservation, and increase the value of that content in broader discussions about storage and management solutions for both digital and print collections. More information is available at http://blog.si.umich.edu/2009/09/28/mellon-grant-aids-researching-criteria-for-digital-libraries/.
Update: This project received a one-year no-cost extension and will continue through August 2011.
2008
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to create a Copyright Review Management System
In 2008, the University of Michigan Library was awarded a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a Copyright Review Management System (CRMS). The purpose of the project is to increase the reliability of copyright status determinations of books published in the United States from 1923 to 1963, and to help create a point of collaboration with other institutions. As of summer 2010, 4 HathiTrust partners (Indiana University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin) are engaged in the review of volumes deposited in HathiTrust that are published in this date range. See http://www.lib.umich.edu/imls-national-leadership-grant-crms for more background information and project updates.