UMass Amherst to digitize W.E.B. DuBois papers

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst announced it would be digitizing the entire collection of papers of W.E.B DuBois, an early pioneer of civil rights who helped found the organization that became the NAACP.

Although few details about the hardware and software being used in the project were available as we went to press, the university plans to scan, catalog and index the vast collection of papers that includes more than 4000 of his printed articles most of which are out of print along with diaries, letters, pictures an other artifacts from DuBois' life. Up until now, these papers have only been available to a handful of scholars.

By digitizing the collection, it will enable students and other interested parties to access the papers online says Robert Cox, who is director of special collections at the UMass Library (which has been named for DuBois). "Taking advantage of broadband technology, students and teachers at all levels will soon be able to access Du Bois’s experiences, thoughts and writings as a foundation to conduct research in American history and social studies,” Cox said.

The project is being funded by a $200,000 from the Verizon Foundation. This type of project is an exciting example of how, by using scanning and document management technology, we can provide access to information that was previously only available to scholars who had access to special collections locked away inside libraries. This provides a way to make this information available to anyone who's interested.