Once considered a repository for older finished works, the term library has not often been mentioned in the same breath as words like innovative and creative. But libraries have recently transformed and modernized their approach to scholarship and systems for supporting it by going digital, publishing new works, and transforming research methods. Far from being an exception, University Libraries is providing a benchmark for such progress by offering a new platform for scholars to share their fresh research and creative works with the world.
Through the University Libraries’ digital archive, Trace (Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange), faculty members and students can display and archive their conference papers, dissertations, technical reports, data sets, multimedia projects, works of art, course notes, or previously published articles—any work they wish to share. Launched in September 2009, Trace is growing exponentially with items spanning the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. And because Trace is an open-access publisher accessible through Google and other popular search engines, readers and scholars outside the UT community can view the items stored there. Unique treasures found in the database include historic letters in the Tennessee Documentary History collection and early photos of the Great Smoky Mountains, which were instrumental in convincing Congress to create the national park.
“Trace is ideal for sharing our work with colleagues worldwide. My work can be discovered by other researchers we are not even yet aware of,” says Ken Phillips, an associate dean in the College of Nursing.
Dean of Libraries Barbara Dewey points out that Trace also reduces the costs associated with discovering new scholarship. “Open access is a new model for publishing scholarship created for the public good. Trace can host journals too, creating peer-reviewed competition for costly commercial journals available only to those who can afford to subscribe,” she explains.
University Libraries is expanding access to quality publications in other ways as well. Newfound Press, the libraries’ digital press, publishes peer-reviewed works meriting wide dissemination that are unlikely candidates for market-driven presses because of their narrow focus or innovative format—everything from a bibliographic database like “Southern Manuscript Sermons before 1800” to a translation of Simplicissimus, a German Don Quixote. Newfound Press’s titles are freely accessible on the web, with print versions available via the University of Tennessee Press.
RESEARCH & SCHOLARSHIP
Professor Michael Lofaro, compiler of the sermons database, says, “It’s great to have a peer-reviewed local imprint with a versatile acquisitions profile. Colonial-era sermons are a highly specialized topic, yet they are of potential interest to scholars and the general public.”
A trusted archive with powerful new discovery tools, the University Libraries system showcases UT Knoxville’s intellectual capital and opens its virtual doors to all who wish to view its rich resources.
