The Digital Rotunda

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The Digital Rotunda

• Penelope Kaiserlian
• University of Virginia Press
• pkaiserlian_at_virginia.edu

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Background

• Established 2001 to leverage existing strength of
  UVa in incubating digital scholarship
• Funding from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and
  Presidents Office at UVa
• Provide traditional peer reviewing, editing,
  marketing and business functions for digital
  publications

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topics

• Technology
• Content
• Business model

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Technology

• Primary source content drives choice of XML over
  PDF
• High startup cost of technology Mark Logic
  content interaction server
• Accessing the material in new ways/Content-driven
  viewer environments customized navigation
  merging multiple document sources

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topics

• Technology
• Content
• Business model

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Content

• Practical and Strategic reasons for building
  foundational content collections
• Dearth of born digital content
• Preference of librarians for large
  subject-oriented collections
• Existing UVa and other University Press list
  strength in documentary and critical editions
• Rotunda is divided into two subject area
  collections
• American Founding Era
• 19th Century Literature and Culture

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• Collection primarily focused on the major
  Founding Era documentary editions
• George Washington
• John, Abigail, and John Quincy Adams
• Thomas Jefferson
• James and Dolley Madison
• Alexander Hamilton
• Documentary History of the Ratification of the
  Constitution

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• It is clear that while the Adams Papers will be
  a valuable research tool as an individual
  publication, they will be greatly enhanced by
  being part of this extraordinary Rotunda
  collection.
• C. James Taylor, Editor in Chief, Adams Papers
• Advantage to having all major Founding Era
  projects together is to provide interoperability
  in two ways

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• It is clear that while the Adams Papers will be
  a valuable research tool as an individual
  publication, they will be greatly enhanced by
  being part of this extraordinary Rotunda
  collection.
• C. James Taylor, Editor in Chief, Adams Papers
• Advantage to having all major Founding Era
  projects together is to provide interoperability
  in two ways
• SEARCH

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• It is clear that while the Adams Papers will be
  a valuable research tool as an individual
  publication, they will be greatly enhanced by
  being part of this extraordinary Rotunda
  collection.
• C. James Taylor, Editor in Chief, Adams Papers
• Advantage to having all major Founding Era
  projects together is to provide interoperability
  in two ways
• SEARCH
• NAVIGATION

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• User arrives at documents in Founding Era through
  one of four "entrances
• Chronology
• Print Edition
• Index
• Search

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• How the reader navigates through the documents
  (moving to "next" or "previous" document, or
  moving up and down in the document hierarchy)
  will depend on which of the four entrances they
  have used to reach the document

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• Variety of projects
• Comparative textual editions Melville Unfolding
  (IATH) Clotel (E-text)
• Digitized legacy content Letters of Christina
  Rossetti Letters of Matthew Arnold VLCS
  Digitized (monographs)
• Born digital with facsimiles Emily Dickinsons
  Correspondences

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topics

• Technology
• Content
• Business model

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Pricing Model

• Perpetual license plus annual maintenance fee
• Tiered pricing based on institution size and type
• Addition of subscription model as collections
  grow
• Possible addition of timed access model for
  individuals

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Marketing"The Dolley Madison Digital
Edition bodes well both for the future of
online scholarship and ROTUNDA--Library Journal

• Marketed and sold direct to academic and research
  libraries, high schools, and individual scholars
• 35 customers as of 6/15/07

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Thank you

• Penelope Kaiserlian
• University of Virginia Press
• pkaiserlian_at_virginia.edu