In June 2011, CRL’s digital production program surpassed three million pages digitized for scholars at CRL libraries (with an 1894 volume on How to Train Animals, right, requested by the University of Central Florida). This milestone figure represents the digital conversion of approximately 16,000 items to date, all discoverable through the CRL catalog as well as OCLC’s WorldCat.

In-house production of digital delivery of full-length texts began in 2006 as part of CRL’s strategic commitment to making its shared collections more accessible. CRL’s in-house production unit scans approximately 50,000 pages monthly in various formats—paper copies (including bound volumes), microfilm, microfiche, microcard—to support research and teaching by faculty and students through CRL libraries. CRL provides text-searchable PDFs for most documents, wherever the source quality and language permit, and archives the PDFs and TIFF page images.

Of the 16,000 titles available in digital format, about 14,100 are monographs. A little less than half of the titles are in English. German, French, and Russian combined equal another 2,000 titles, and 93 languages are represented in the remaining half. Approximately 4,000 titles are in public domain; the remaining items are made available for research and study to scholars only at CRL libraries. 

CRL digital production prioritizes scanning and digital delivery of CRL collection items requested by scholars. CRL’s Digital Services focuses on what is unique to the collection rather than duplicating other digitization efforts. Most member requests receive completed scans within five working days, but CRL staff can also digitize substantial amounts of material on demand by negotiating fulfillment deadlines to deliver material in a timely manner.

For more information, visit the Digital Services page or contact Amy Wood, CRL Director of Technical Services.