Digital Initiatives

To do the best job of supporting faculty and students, the Alkek Library must build and expand access to digital materials and the applications and tools for their use.

Libraries have long provided space for physical collections of print, audio-visual, microform materials and other learning objects. However, the increasingly ubiquitous nature of technology has changed the very nature (though not the mission) of the library. Electronic resources continue to grow and represent a significant portion of the library's collections — so much so that some claim we are beyond the “tipping point” where electronic holdings outnumber print holdings.

The range of digital materials exits in multiple forms and combinations including commercially licensed products such as electronic journals, e-books and reference databases; digitized collections reformatted by the library (particularly rare or unique materials including holdings in the library's Wittliff Collections and the University Archives), and scholarship produced by the faculty, students and staff of the university (theses and dissertations, data files, working papers and technical reports, pre-prints and post-prints of published research).

Acquiring primary source databases, journal archives, e-book collections, and streaming media will expand the breadth and depth of available resources to support the full range of Texas State teaching and research activities, and put the Alkek Library on par with other research libraries. Possible purchases include Adam Matthews primary source collections, ProQuest and Gale historical newspapers, Alexander Street video databases, as well as journal archive and e-book sets from major publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Sage.

Digitizing the Alkek Library's copy of Spanish conquistador Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca's account of his explorations of what is now Texas and the Southwest (La Relación) made it easier to incorporate this remarkable historical portrait into the university's curriculum. So too, digitized materials from the Dick J. Reavis Papers related to the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff have been consistently in use by researchers worldwide. More holdings from the Wittliff Collections need to be digitized to increase access to these important cultural assets.

University Archives staff are eager to digitize publication runs of the Pedagog (Texas State's yearbook) and school newspaper, the University Star, to make these in-demand resources easily accessible.

The Alkek Library continues to develop eCommons, its portal to the library's digital collections that includes an institutional repository of scholarship produced by Texas State faculty and students. Texas State has joined the libraries of the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University and others to create the Texas Digital Library, a digital infrastructure to provide cost-effective, collaborative solutions to the challenges of digital storage, publication and preservation of research, scholarship and teaching materials.

All of these initiatives are parts of a digital library platform that includes software, equipment and staff expertise to preserve and provide access to a wide range of electronic resources for the direct benefit of Texas State faculty and students, as well as for researchers and interested individuals around the world.