Building a new infrastructure for digital media: Northwestern University Library

The Northwestern University Library has been a pioneer in text and media digitization. From early efforts primarily focused on enhancing access to reserve material to current projects involving vast quantities of streaming media, in great part these projects have been the result of close collaboration between the library and other units on campus, particularly Academic Technologies. As the depth and breadth of digitization efforts have increased, so have the technological and organizational issues. This article examines the history of digitization efforts at Northwestern University as a context for exploring the emerging issues most libraries face as digitization enters a new era.