The ‘DOD’ and ‘POD’ project in context at McGill: part of digitizing collections to preserve content, provide access and enrich research

The McGill Library in Canada has extensive holdings of online resources, including its own theses and purchased e-book and e-journal collections. It also holds significant collections of rare books and heritage materials in its central Rare Books and Special Collections and branch libraries, amassed over many years through significant donations as well as purchase. Material covers many languages and multiple formats, and ranges from Canadiana to cook books. Most items held are not listed in the online catalogue, making discovery difficult. Early digitization focused on scanning of content and creation of individual websites for projects. More recently, planned standardized approaches have focused on the publishing of two online journals, on a digitization-on-demand (DOD) project with materials in the public domain, linked to print on demand (POD), and on improving discoverability. This paper tracks some developments, outlines current projects and indicates future directions.