Steps Toward a Globally Distributed Mathematics Library The University of Michigan Experience Sara Rutter March 18, 2002

Overview  Selecting and digitizing the books  Linking the collection to an interoperable distributed digital library of mathematical monographs

Background Digital Landscape (late 1998)  Cornell Historic Math Book Collection  Jahrbuch Project  Linking from Mathscinet to journal articles  Making of America Project at the University of Michigan

Local Conditions  Strong collection of 19th century mathematics monographs at UM  Mathematicians, philosophy researchers, needed to use historical mathematics books  Mass deacidification project, pizza box project

Proposal  Scan/digitize and OCR, crumbling books  Focus on non-Euclidean geometry; grow out from that center  Capture important time in mathematics

Bibliographies Used  D.M. Y. Sommerville’s Bibliography of Non-Euclidean Geometry, 2nd ed.  George Halsted’s Bibliography of Hyper-Space and Non-Euclidean Geometry, American Journal of Mathematics 1(1878)

Grand Scheme  Digitize as many of the core works in the bibliographies as possible  Create/show intellectual links; make connections  Link to the Jahrbuch  Link to the Catalogue of scientific papers (when digitized)

Access and Preservation  Provide access to content often difficult to access because of physical condition, location  Preserve content in a way that will enhance scholarly productivity

Selection Process  File extracted from online catalog of mathematics monographs with publishing dates between  Selected works with connection to development of non-Euclidean geometry  Shared list with faculty within UM and with other interested scholars

Digitizing  Find the books  Communicate with remote storage facility  Cataloging  Inspect each book  NSF-MATH reformatting staff

Criteria  Held by the University of Michigan Library  Published between 1800 to 1923  Brittle  Not digitized by Cornell or Goettingen  Works of mathematicians who contributed to development of non-Euclidean geometry

University of Michigan Historical Mathematics Collection