Welcome to the Digital Library

We have entered a new age in which, more and more, material for learning, teaching and research is available in digital formats, as well as or in place of print. This new world requires new strategies from libraries to ensure that these materials, or "digital objects" are readily accessible to those who need them, and also where necessary to store and preserve those digital objects.

The University of Adelaide Digital Library undertakes projects aimed at enhancing access to information for our members. These include, in the words of Stephen Griffin,

... [providing] for collection development, organisation, access, annotation and preservation [of] information in digital form as well as digital management of information residing on physical media.
Griffin, Stephen M. (Program Manager of the Digital Libraries Initiative, NSF) interview: "Taking the Initiative for Digital Libraries, "The Electronic Library, vol. 16, no. 1, Feb. 1998: 24-27.

Among current projects are:

The Catalogue: The University of Adelaide Library was one of the first in Austrlia to offer an online catalogue of its collections, and we continue to explore new ideas and systems for enhancing access through the Catalogue.
The Digital Resources Management Centre (DRMC): The DRMC is an initiative of three areas of the University of Adelaide: the University Library; the Division of the University Secretary; and the Learning and Teaching Development Unit. It provides a central point for the digitisation of all copyright text material that is required for teaching purposes. This allows for monitoring of the use of copyright material in digital format, to ensure compliance with Copyright legislation.
ERgo: our gateway to electronic resources, ERgo allows you to simultaneously search multiple databases for journal articles, and where available click through to the full text.
eBooks@Adelaide: eBooks@Adelaide is our own collection of Electronic Texts. Started in 1987, we now have over 1,000 ebooks in our collection, which includes classic works of Literature, Philosophy, Science, and History.
University Research Collection: Currently in development, this will provide access to the research output of the University, including published articles, conference papers, and other items. Faculty members interested in participating should contact the library for more information.
University Theses Collection: This project aims to enhance access to the University's higher degree theses, by making the title, contents and abstract of each thesis available online. Over 12,000 theses dating back to the earliest available have been scanned and made accessible through this site. We will be further improving access by adding searchable metadata to the site. (Currently, access is through our Catalogue.)
Australian Digital Thesis Collection: The national Digital Thesis collection, to which we have been contrinuting since 2001.
Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg is a US-based project which has been digitising books and making them available online, since 1974. While we have no affiliation with Project Gutenberg, we are keen to bring this excellent resource to our members, and to that end we will be generating metadata in MARC format to add over 17,000 etexts to our Catalogue, and instituting a regular update program for the records.