Steps Toward a Globally Distributed Mathematics Library

The University of Michigan ExperienceSara Rutter

March 18, 2002

Overview

Selecting and digitizing the books

Linking the collection to an interoperable distributed digital library of mathematical monographs

Background Digital Landscape (late 1998)

Cornell Historic Math Book Collection Jahrbuch Project Linking from Mathscinet to journal

articles Making of America Project at the

University of Michigan

Local Conditions

Strong collection of 19th century mathematics monographs at UM

Mathematicians, philosophy researchers, needed to use historical mathematics books

Mass deacidification project, pizza box project

Proposal

Scan/digitize and OCR, crumbling books

Focus on non-Euclidean geometry; grow out from that center

Capture important time in mathematics

Bibliographies Used

D.M. Y. Sommerville’s Bibliography of Non-Euclidean Geometry, 2nd ed.

George Halsted’s Bibliography of Hyper-Space and Non-Euclidean Geometry, American Journal of Mathematics 1(1878)

Grand Scheme

Digitize as many of the core works in the bibliographies as possible

Create/show intellectual links; make connections

Link to the Jahrbuch Link to the Catalogue of scientific papers

(when digitized)

Access and Preservation

Provide access to content often difficult to access because of physical condition, location

Preserve content in a way that will enhance scholarly productivity

Selection Process

File extracted from online catalog of mathematics monographs with publishing dates between 1800-1925

Selected works with connection to development of non-Euclidean geometry

Shared list with faculty within UM and with other interested scholars

Digitizing

Find the books Communicate with remote storage

facility Cataloging Inspect each book NSF-MATH reformatting staff

Criteria

Held by the University of Michigan Library Published between 1800 to 1923 Brittle Not digitized by Cornell or Goettingen Works of mathematicians who contributed

to development of non-Euclidean geometry

University of Michigan Historical Mathematics Collection

http://www.hti.umich.edu/u/umhistmath/