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The Digital Initiatives & Web Services department builds and preserves sustainable digital collections, and also supports digital preservation, open access, and digital humanities efforts campus-wide, partnering with library staff, faculty, IT, and other stakeholders. See our Digital Projects page and our Digital Collections blog for more about our projects and current activities.
Digital Initiatives & Web Services is responsible for the selection, creation, delivery, and preservation of the Library’s digital collections. We adhere to national and international community-based standards and best practices in all our work. Our purpose is to provide digital collections to as wide an audience as possible, in keeping with our Amherst College Library Digital Content Strategy and Digital Collection Development Policy for archival and special collections materials.
Digital Initiatives & Web Services also supports faculty who use images in their teaching. We acquire or create digital images where possible, in response to specific requests. Please contact Digital Initiatives & Web Services for more information.
The Digital Initiatives & Web Services department consults on digital scholarship projects, and may provide support or guidance in digitization, text encoding, metadata, and project management, in partnership with faculty, the Library, and Information Technology. Since 2014, Digital Initiatives & Web Services has led the Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship program, providing opportunities for current undergraduate students and recent graduates to learn digital scholarship methodologies and implement a project.
The Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship for 2017 considered the archival collections documenting the early history of Amherst College, in anticipation of the bicentennial in 2021. Drawing from rich materials in Amherst’s Archives and Special Collections, they explored the intersections between the physical, social and intellectual environments of early Amherst. Their website, Early Amherst, provides a window into the places, people, intellectual activities and worldviews that founded Amherst College. You can also read the College's news story on their experience.
Past projects and consultations include:
The Digital Initiatives & Web Services department partners with Archives & Special Collections to ensure long-term, sustainable access to the digital content produced by the Library and the College. Current efforts to further digital preservation at Amherst include:
Frost Library, Rooms A16 & A25 (near the computer lab on A Level)