News & Events

The libraries of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) universities are partnering with Google to digitize a comprehensive collection of U.S. federal documents. The partners believe this collection will comprise between 1 and 1.5 million volumes.

The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities is testing the workflow and scanning process for the initiative by sending Google a substantial number of duplicate holdings from its St. Paul campus. Digital facsimiles of successfully scanned federal documents from Minnesota--and eventually other CIC institutions--will be returned to the HathiTrust Digital Repository, where public domain material can be universally accessed.

This project is part of an overarching initiative led by CIC library directors to assess the opportunities digital copies preserved in the HathiTrust might provide for more cost-effective management of less frequently used print resources. 

With three CIC Universities designated as comprehensive Regional Depositories for print documents (Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin), it is anticipated the Selective Depositories might be in a position to make coordinated decisions about print retention. Indiana University is a Selective Depository.

The U.S. Federal Documents collection is one of several categories of materials where CIC libraries believe they can achieve efficiencies by better managing the relationship between digital and print resources, with assurances that an adequate number of print copies are available for future use.

The CIC library directors have charged a steering committee with responsibility to plan this initiative.  The members of the CIC Steering Committee on Federal Documents Digitization include co-chairs Marianne Ryan (Purdue) and Kirsten Clark (Minnesota), Geoff Swindells (Northwestern), Irene Zimmerman (Wisconsin) and Lou Malcomb (Indiana).  Pat Steele (Indiana) and Wendy Lougee (Minnesota) are serving as director liaisons to the committee and Mark Sandler and Kim Armstrong from the CIC Center for Library Initiatives are providing administrative support.