NEWS RELEASE Contact: Eric Bartheld
October 28, 1998 (812) 856-4817 ebarthel@indiana.edu

New Digital Library National Grants Awarded

Two grants totaling $456,000 from the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to Indiana University will support projects to make fine arts and music collections available via the World Wide Web.

A $290,000 grant awarded to the IUPUI University Libraries - Herron Art Library in partnership with the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) will provide access on a trial basis to AMICO’s digital image database for the K-12 educational and public library communities in the greater Indianapolis area. AMICO is a consortium of over 23 major North American art museums that have joined in partnership to test the delivery of images from their museum collections over the World Wide Web.

A $166,000 grant will fund a project to digitize IU’s Hoagy Carmichael collection on the Bloomington campus. Users of the World Wide Web will be able to listen to selections of Carmichael’s widely recognized music or view images of original musical scores, photographs, scrap books, and lyric sheets. Designed to appeal to a wide audience, a Web site will include an online museum exhibition as well as more in-depth information for scholars. The project will be managed jointly by the IU Digital Library Program and the IU Archives of Traditional Music, which offers the largest grouping of materials pertaining to Carmichael’s life available anywhere.

"The projects are appealing for us because they build on our expertise in information technology and involve partnerships between IU and the communities our campuses serve," says IU President Myles Brand. "Imagine grade-school students sitting in a classroom and being able to access via computer our country’s greatest paintings or the tunes of Indiana’s favorite songwriter. The grants will make these possibilities a reality."

Presently, the AMICO Library contains more than 20,000 art images, which represent the collections of premier museums including the George Eastman House, Center for Creative Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, National Gallery of Canada, Art Institute of Chicago and National Museum of American Art. The AMICO digital library primarily consists of two-dimensional Western art and is available in four resolutions for browsing, searching, classroom projection, and other educational uses. In addition, the digital collection includes photographs, Asian drawings and paintings, and ancient and medieval works.

In all, more than 250 hours of sound recordings, 4,550 pages of printed and textual materials, and 1,070 photographs will be digitized as part of the Hoagy Carmichael project. Carmichael, a master songwriter, created widely recognized songs such as "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," "Georgia on My Mind," and "In the Still of the Night."

IU has substantial experience in audio digitization, both in the Archives of Traditional Music and in the Music Library, where over 5,000 hours of audio have been digitized to date and stored for online access.

IMLS is an independent Federal grantmaking agency that fosters leadership, innovation and a lifetime of learning by supporting museums and libraries. Of more than 250 applicants for the first-ever National Leadership Grant awards, 41 were awarded grants. The pioneering awards support projects that address education, research, preservation, and library-museum partnerships.

For details about each project, contact:

Kris Brancolini
Indiana University Libraries
Acting Director, Digital Library Program
(812) 855-3710
brancoli@indiana.edu

Gloria Gibson
Director, Archives of Traditional Music
(812) 855-8634
gibsong@indiana.edu

Sonja Staum-Kuniej
IUPUI Herron Art Library
(317) 920-2432
sstaumku@iupui.edu