Collections
Collections include books, photographs, archives of Caribbean leaders and governments, legal documents, official historical documents, literature (novels, poetry, journals, and more), art, audio-visual materials, and historic and contemporary maps. Collections also include Caribbean studies journals and scholarly publications including the New West Indian Guide , MaComère, the Jamaica Journal , and many others.
The Digital Library of the Caribbean provides open access to all materials, and all materials are full text searchable with JPG2000 images that load quickly but can be zoomed for detail, and the multiple formats support the digital preservation of materials in the Digital Library of the Caribbean. As of June 2019, the Digital Library of the Caribbean held 157,451 items comprising 3,447,483 pages built from the ongoing digitization of new materials from partner institutions.
The University of Florida is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member and flagship of the State University System of Florida. The university traces its origins to 1853 and has operated continuously on its Gainesville campus since September 1906.
The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish, is a public land-grant university in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. UPRM is the second-largest university campus of the University of Puerto Rico system. In addition to its status as a land-grant university, it is also a member of the sea-grant and space-grant research consortia. In 2009, the campus population was composed of 12,108 students, 1,924 regular staff members, and 1,037 members of the education staff. In 2013, the student population remained relatively steady at 11,838, but the instructional faculty dropped to 684. In the second semester of 2019 around 12,166 students were enrolled. By the end of the academic year 2022-2023 there were 10,071 students enrolled. UPRM has been accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) since 1946.
The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus is a public land-grant research university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the largest campus in the University of Puerto Rico system in terms of student population and it was Puerto Rico's first public university campus.
The National Digital Newspaper Program is a joint project between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to create and maintain a publicly available, online digital archive of historically significant newspapers published in the United States between 1836 and 1922. Additionally, the program will make available bibliographic records and holdings information for some 140,000 newspaper titles from the 17th century to the present. Further, it will include scope notes and encyclopedia-style entries discussing the historical significance of specific newspapers. Added content will also include contextually relevant historical information. "One organization within each U.S. state or territory will receive an award to collaborate with relevant state partners in this effort." In March 2007 more than 226,000 pages of newspapers from California, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, Virginia and the District of Columbia published between 1900 and 1910 were put online at a fully searchable site called "Chronicling America." As of December 2007, the total number of pages is about 413,000. This further expanded to be 1 million pages in 2009. Funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities is carried out through their "We The People" initiative.
At the time of first contact between Europe and the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean included the Taíno of the northern Lesser Antilles, most of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguayo and Macorix of parts of Hispaniola, and the Guanahatabey of western Cuba. The Kalinago have maintained an identity as an indigenous people, with a reserved territory in Dominica.
The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) of the United States was an archival program led by the Library of Congress to archive and provide access to digital resources. The program convened several working groups, administered grant projects, and disseminated information about digital preservation issues. The U.S. Congress established the program in 2000, and official activity specific to NDIIPP itself wound down between 2016 and 2018. The Library was chosen because of its role as one of the leading providers of high-quality content on the Internet. The Library of Congress has formed a national network of partners dedicated to preserving specific types of digital content that is at risk of loss.
The George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida constitute one of the largest university library systems in the United States. The system includes eight of the nine libraries of the University of Florida and provides primary support to all academic programs except those served by the Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center. Previously the Health Science Center Library was also separate, but it was integrated into the Smathers Libraries on July 1, 2009. The current dean is Judith C. Russell. All of the libraries serve all of the university's faculty and students, but each has a special mission to be the primary support of specific colleges and degree programs, with Marston being the favorite library. As is common in research libraries, library materials are housed in a variety of locations depending upon discipline. The three largest libraries cover an extensive range of disciplines while the smaller libraries focus on three or fewer disciplines.
The Center for Research Libraries is a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries, based on a buy-in concept for membership of the consortia. The consortium acquires and preserves traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery. It also gathers and analyzes data pertaining to the preservation of physical and digital resources, and fosters the sharing of expertise, in order to assist member libraries in maintaining their collections.
The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) comprise a constantly growing collection of digital resources from the University of Florida's library collections as well as partner institutions. Founded in April 2006, UFDC has added over 622,114 items - books, newspapers, oral histories, videos, photos, data sets, and more - with over 14 million pages.
Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM) is a cooperative initiative of the public universities of Florida in the United States to provide a central repository for smaller digital collections. In addition to contributing to PALMM, universities in Florida also host and maintain separate individual digital collections as well as many large collaborative projects. In September 2011, Florida's Council of State University Libraries selected SobekCM to power a common digital library system across the state, replacing the software currently powering the PALMM collections.
The Farmington Plan was a twentieth-century collective collections initiative developed by American research libraries in order to ensure access to research materials and publications regardless of war or other events around the world. The plan created a cooperative acquisitions program for foreign materials by region and subject. Even prior to the Farmington Plan, some institutions had already developed their own foreign acquisitions and preservation programs, including the University of Florida, which preserved Caribbean materials and was only added later as partner in the Farmington Plan.
University of Florida Center for African Studies (CAS) is a center within of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) at the University of Florida (UF). The Center provides teaching and research into issues of African languages, humanities, social sciences, agriculture, business, engineering, education, fine arts, environmental studies, conservation, journalism, and law.
Princeton University Library is the main library system of Princeton University. With holdings of more than 7 million books, 6 million microforms, and 48,000 linear feet of manuscripts, it is among the largest libraries in the world by number of volumes. The main headquarters of the university system is the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library building, named after tire magnate Harvey Firestone. Additionally, Princeton is part of the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP) along with Columbia Libraries, Harvard Library and New York Public Library.
The Florida Atlantic University Libraries are a set of libraries in Florida Atlantic University. It comprises a main library on the Boca Raton Campus, the University College Library at the Davie campus, the Broward County Main Library, the FAU Harbor Branch Library, and the John D. MacArthur Campus Library in Jupiter.
SobekCM is an open-source software engine and suite of associated tools for digital libraries and digital repositories for galleries, libraries, archives, museums, colleges, universities, scholarly research projects as with the Digital Humanities, Research Data Collections, and more. The SobekCM software was developed initially at the University of Florida Libraries by Mark V. Sullivan, with much input from UF and collaborative partners, and ongoing development supported by the full team at the UF Libraries and the larger collaborative community. The largest digital repositories powered by SobekCM are the University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) and the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC).
The Catalog of Digital Historical Newspapers (NewspaperCat) is a free online resource for open-access digitized historical newspapers published in North America and the Caribbean. NewspaperCat was developed from a grant by the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida and is powered by SobekCM, the content management system used by the University of Florida Digital Collections.
Alfred Palmerston Thorne was a development economist, international consultant and educator. He was a featured university lecturer at a number of international campuses including Oxford University. Authoring many articles on the economic development experience of developing countries, his scholarly works were published by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford Economic Papers, University of Puerto Rico, and University of the West Indies. Among other works, Dr. Thorne authored the Size, Structure and Growth of the Economy of Jamaica: A National Economic Accounts Study. The monograph traces the flow of national income throughout the country's economic sectors. It was very well received and has been collected by and taught at institutions and libraries across the globe. Thorne was also a contributor to Development Without Aid by Leopold Kohr.
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is the official oral history program at the University of Florida. With over 6,500 interviews and more than 150,000 pages of transcribed material, it is one of the premier oral history programs in the United States. SPOHP's mission is "to gather, preserve, and promote living histories of individuals from all walks of life." The program involves staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and community volunteers in its operation.
The Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) is a Caribbean library organization founded in 1969. It is based in the José M. Lázaro Library of the University of Puerto Rico.
The Jane Bancroft Cook Library is an academic library serving New College of Florida (NCF). The library is currently located on the New College campus along US 41 Tamiami Trail right next door to the Ringling Museum. In addition to serving NCF, this facility also serves the community by allowing modest borrowing privileges and Wi-Fi usage on a restricted basis.
