Next-Generation Technical Services (NGTS) is an initiative developed by the University of California Libraries as an outgrowth of the UC Libraries Bibliographic Services Task Force Report and a strategic partnership with OCLC to develop a “Next-Generation Melvyl” to re-architect the systemwide OPAC in order to transform the user experience of search and retrieval.

This presentation analyzes the nine-year experience of an academic digital library, e-Asia, which now holds over 4,000 items. In many respects, the e-Asia library is a long-running experiment. Yet the project is mature enough to provided lessons in what to do (and what not to do) when digital text is the focus of collection building. Unlike traditional libraries where, over time, books migrate to and from their shelves, digital libraries hold content that remains relatively immobile while it is the digital “shelves” that change and migrate over time.

Catherine Quinlan – Dean of the USC Libraries Hugh McHarg – Executive Director of Communications and Public Programming, USC Libraries The new University of Southern California Digital Library is the outcome of significant transformations in the USC Libraries’ digitization philosophy, practice, and infrastructure. The new entity unites digitization processes, collection-development strategies, metadata services, distributed content [...]

n April 2008, the University of California, San Diego sent its first shipment of books to be digitized as part of the Google Book Search Library Project, a global effort launched in 2004 to digitize collections from the world’s top universities and libraries to make them searchable and discoverable online.

The University of Hong Kong Libraries has begun two initiatives this year employing IT to improve its services to readers:

Rare Book Digitisation Project. The Libraries have allowed the iGroup to set up a scanning shop in its Main Library. Initially it will be used to scan 4,000 western language monographs in its rare book collection dealing mainly with China. It will then be used for other special collections projects.

RFID: The Libraries have partnered with the university’s own E-Business Technology Institute (ETI), IBM, and Tagsys to employ RFID technology in 1.3 million volumes in its Main Librar