Digital Collections Worldwide

The digitization of collections around the world offers tremendous opportunity for researchers on almost any subject. But how does one know what’s available? That problem is masterfully addressed by Digital Collections Worldwide, another cutting-edge research tool from Neal-Schuman Publishers.

As Cheryl LaGuardia puts it in the Foreword, “The listings here, accompanied as they are by rich annotations, will inform librarians and researchers alike; instead of searching Google for hours to uncover subsections of what’s here, users can quickly and easily find pertinent information about digital collections around the globe and access them immediately. It’s a time-saving and informative tool, and one on which I’ll depend …”

An invaluable resource for anyone wishing to take full advantage of what the web has to offer, this extensively annotated and thoroughly indexed guide organizes and describes the contents of thousands of important digital collections around the globe. Organized geographically by continent, each chapter begins with an overview of the continent and digital collections relevant to the continent as a whole, and then provides separate sections for individual nations, introducing important digital collections and offering descriptions of their scope and purpose.

Detailed information is then provided on each collection and each of its segments, including links to representative material. Pointing the way to many valuable and informative collections that are currently highly underutilized, the guide helps both librarians and researchers answer questions such as:

• What is the subject matter and content of the digitization project?
• What institution, organization, library, museum or other host is making the information available?

This unique resource speaks to one of the more difficult challenges facing reference librarians today. By describing a vast array of resources not commonly represented in fixed library collections or discoverable via popular search engines such as Google, it promises to extend the research capabilities of any library, however small. A companion website gives librarians and researchers all of the links found in the book so researchers can avoid transcribing the often-lengthy URLs.