University Library to help create Michigan historical reprint series

The Scholarly Publishing Office of the University Library has joined with Lightning Source Inc. to bring high-quality hardbound reprints of 19th century books to libraries and booksellers.

By using print-on-demand technology, the Library now can offer readers and libraries the opportunity to acquire new copies of many 19th century volumes that have become difficult to find, either because they are long out of print or because original copies have deteriorated.

"These volumes are a boon to libraries looking to fill gaps in their 19th century collections, to scholars in need of older, difficult to find texts, and to readers with all manner of historical and genealogical interest in 19th century America," says University Librarian William Gosling.

The volumes are produced from digital images created through the University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of these books in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses, Gosling says.

The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can be accessed online, but that also can be used to create new print copies. Several thousand of these digitized volumes have been online for several years in the "Making of America" collection ( http://moa.umdl.umich.edu) and the U-M Historical Mathematics collection
(http://www.hti.umich.edu/u/umhistmath).

These publicly available, online collections have experienced enormous use, Gosling says. At the same time, the Library has had a steady stream of request for reprints of the collections.

"The Library understands and values the utility of print and has been searching for a way to meet these requests," Gosling says.

Users can search and view the full text of almost 10,000 titles in the two collections, and now, through an arrangement with Lightning Source, can purchase reprints directly from the collection interface using an online ordering system.

Libraries interested in other forms of ordering can make special arrangements with the Scholarly Publishing Office, http://spo.umdl.umich.edu/.

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