D-Scribe Digital Publishing

D-Scribe Digital Publishing is an open access electronic publishing program of the University Library System (ULS) of the University of Pittsburgh. It comprises over 100 thematic collections that together contain over 100,000 digital objects. This content, most of which is available through open access, includes both digitized versions of materials from the collections of the University of Pittsburgh and other local institutions as well as original 'born-electronic' content actively contributed by scholars worldwide. D-Scribe includes such items as photographs, maps, books, journal articles, dissertations, government documents, and technical reports, along with over 745 previously out-of-print titles published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The digital publishing efforts of the University Library System began in 1998 and have won praise for their innovation from the leadership at the Association of Research Libraries and peer institutions.

The University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh has created various digital collections through its D-Scribe Digital Publishing program and has made them available to the public via the Internet. The following is a selection of the more prominent or larger collections available online.

A full-text digitized presentation of over 140 historic books in the 16,000 volume Neitz Old Textbook Collection. The textbooks date from the 19th century and are fully searchable.

A digitized repository and archive of material dealing with European integration that focuses on the normalization of relations of Eastern and Western Europe following the Cold War and the integration movements in West Europe that resulted in the European Community. Nearly 30 universities throughout Europe and America contribute content to the AEI. The AEI collects both independently produced research materials and official European Community/European Union documents. Many of the digitized documents in the AEI are drawn from the University Library System's collection of EU documents received in 2007 when the library of the Delegation of the European Commission to the US in Washington, D.C. was donated to the University of Pittsburgh.

The University's complete double elephant folio set of John James Audubon's The Birds of America, one of only 120 complete sets of all 435 plates in existence, was preserved and restored over a five-month process in 2000. In 2007, along with the five volume set of Audubon's Ornithological Biography, the plates were digitized at high resolution and made available in one complete online collection.

The Darlington Digital Library contains digitized materials from the Darlington Memorial Library. The Library is a major collection related to American history, particularly colonial American history in Western Pennsylvania. Digitized items included vintage atlases, books, broadsides, images, manuscripts, and maps.

Former Pennsylvania governor and United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh donated his personal papers to the University of Pittsburgh in 1998. Portions of the collection are digitized and arranged in twenty-one chronological sections, representing Thornburgh's life and career, each with introductory information about the point in time, the position held, and items of importance.

A digitized collection of broadsides manuscripts, maps, images, and personal communications that depict George Washington's time in Western Pennsylvania at various points in his career.