D-Scribe Digital Publishing

D-Scribe Digital Publishing is an open access electronic publishing program of the University Library System (ULS) of the University of Pittsburgh. It comprises over 100 thematic collections that together contain over 100,000 digital objects. This content, most of which is available through open access, includes both digitized versions of materials from the collections of the University of Pittsburgh and other local institutions as well as original 'born-electronic' content actively contributed by scholars worldwide. D-Scribe includes such items as photographs, maps, books, journal articles, dissertations, government documents, and technical reports, along with over 745 previously out-of-print titles published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The digital publishing efforts of the University Library System began in 1998 and have won praise for their innovation from the leadership at the Association of Research Libraries and peer institutions.
Major digitized collections.
The University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh has created various digital collections through its D-Scribe Digital Publishing program and has made them available to the public via the Internet. The following is a selection of the more prominent or larger collections available online.
19th-century schoolbooks.
A full-text digitized presentation of over 140 historic books in the 16,000 volume Neitz Old Textbook Collection. The textbooks date from the 19th century and are fully searchable.
Archive of European Integration.
A digitized repository and archive of material dealing with European integration that focuses on the normalization of relations of Eastern and Western Europe following the Cold War and the integration movements in West Europe that resulted in the European Community. Nearly 30 universities throughout Europe and America contribute content to the AEI. The AEI collects both independently produced research materials and official European Community/European Union documents. Many of the digitized documents in the AEI are drawn from the University Library System's collection of EU documents received in 2007 when the library of the Delegation of the European Commission to the US in Washington, D.C. was donated to the University of Pittsburgh.
Audubon's Birds of America.
The University's complete double elephant folio set of John James Audubon's "The Birds of America", one of only 120 complete sets of all 435 plates in existence, was preserved and restored over a five-month process in 2000. In 2007, along with the five volume set of Audubon's "Ornithological Biography," the plates were digitized at high resolution and made available in one complete online collection.
Darlington Digital Library.
The Darlington Digital Library contains digitized materials from the Darlington Memorial Library. The Library is a major collection related to American history, particularly colonial American history in Western Pennsylvania. Digitized items included vintage atlases, books, broadsides, images, manuscripts, and maps.
Dick Thornburgh Papers.
Former Pennsylvania governor and United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh donated his personal papers to the University of Pittsburgh in 1998. Portions of the collection are digitized and arranged in twenty-one chronological sections, representing Thornburgh's life and career, each with introductory information about the point in time, the position held, and items of importance.
George Washington Manuscripts.
A digitized collection of broadsides manuscripts, maps, images, and personal communications that depict George Washington's time in Western Pennsylvania at various points in his career.
Historic Pittsburgh Collection.
This digital collection includes digitized historical resources on the history of Western Pennsylvania including texts, videos, maps, images, census records, and archival finding aids. Included are over 25,000 images from multiple photographic collections that originated from a digitization project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and completed in 2004. The presentation represents a collaboration between Pittsburgh-area libraries, museums, and universities and includes historic material derived from those held by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh; the Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center; Chatham University Archives; Oakmont Carnegie Library; Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation; and Point Park University Archives.
University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions.
The University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions is a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh Press and the University Library System that has digitized over 745 monographs in order make them freely available to the public via the internet. Mostly out-of-print titles, the collection includes fully searchable titles from the Pitt Latin American Series; Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies; and Composition, Literacy, and Culture.
Stephen Foster Sketchbook.
A digitized and searchable presentation of Stephen Foster's sketchbook that contains 113 leaves with hand-written drafts for 64 different songs, including some unpublished ones, as well as other notations and doodles. The full sketchbook was digitized in Oxford in 2005, with the original stored in a vault at the University of Pittsburgh.
Other digitized collections.
D-Scribe includes many other collections of materials and photographs. Major themes include Asian studies, labor and socialist movement, philosophy, atlases, the Carnegie Museum of Art Collection of Photographs, and historic Pittsburgh photo archives. Also included are photo archives from various conferences and industries.
Electronic archives and repositories.
The D-Scribe Publishing Program has also developed several electronic archives and repositories. These repositories have been developed using Open Access principles, meaning that scholarly content is online, freely available, and immediately accessible to a global audience.
Archive content includes both peer-reviewed and non-refereed content; unpublished and published articles (preprints or postprints); conference proceedings; other grey literature, such as white papers, policy papers, and technical reports; multimedia content including audio, video, and images; and primary research data.
These online archives serve many needs, such as storing the scholarly works of university authors; preserving information from specific research disciplines; and disseminating new scholarly work quickly, without a lengthy publication process.
The content for these archives is drawn from a variety of sources including digitization of ULS print collections and direct author contributions from the worldwide research community. Metadata for each item published in the repository is searchable through search tools such as Google and Yahoo. Based on EPrints, free open source software developed at the University of Southampton, these subject-based repositories offer simple Web-based submission interfaces for authors and a variety of tools for readers including RSS feeds, rich citation export options, and sharing on major social networking sites.
Electronic archives created by the D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program include:
Electronic journal publishing program.
D-Scribe also contains 40 scholarly journals published by the University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh. Through this program, the ULS works with partners around the world to publish peer-reviewed, international Open Access electronic journals. Services offered include server and software hosting; graphic design services; consultation in editorial workflow management and best practices for electronic publishing; and ISSN and DOI registration. These services are offered free of charge in an effort to incentivize academic journal editors to publish their research results through free and Open Access for researchers worldwide. The ULS also publishes several subscription-based journals under a delayed open access model. The publishing platform is based on Open Journal Systems, free open source software developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). As of 2016, 40 journals are published in this program, including: 