Purpose -This paper aims to summarize a three-year federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a statewide digital collection. Design/methodology/approach -This paper describes the Cornerstone Project: its background, the processes used to determine appropriate standards, guidelines, and best practices for digital collections, the technology selected for the digital production centers and the web portal, and its plans for the future. The project is a collaborative statewide initiative to make unique historical treasures from Alabama's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories electronically accessible to Alabama residents as well as students and scholars around the world. Findings -The project has demonstrated a successful model for statewide collaboration among all types of repositories. NAAL member institutions are helping other repositories create digital collections of unique Alabama historical resources. Practical implications -The Cornerstone Project offers practical procedures that can be replicated by any consortia considering distributed digital collection building. Originality/value -The project offers training to help librarians, archivists, and other staff successfully plan, implement, and complete digitization projects. Three shared digital production facilities at the

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to present a brief overview of the current state of distributed digital preservation (DDP) networks in North America and to provide a detailed technical, administrative, and financial description of a working, self-supporting DDP network: the Alabama Digital Preservation Network (ADPNet). Design/methodology/approach -The paper reviews current regional and national initiatives in the field of digital preservation using a variety of sources and considers ADPNet in the context of generally accepted requirements for a robust DDP network. The authors view ADPNet in a comparative perspective with other Private LOCKSS Networks (PLNs) and argue that the Alabama model represents a promising approach to DDP for other states and consortia. Findings -The paper finds that cultural memory organizations in a number of countries have identified digital preservation as a critical issue and are crafting strategies to address it, with DDP-based solutions gaining in popularity in North America. It also identifies an array of technical, administrative, and financial challenges that DDP networks must resolve in order to be viable in the long term. Practical implications -The paper describes a working model for building a low-cost but robust DDP network. Originality/value -The paper is one of the first comprehensive descriptions of a working, self-sustaining DDP network.

Although much has been written about the impact of the Internet and the Web on libraries and librarianship, relatively little attention has been devoted to the subject of librarians as creators and even marketers of new online services. The present article describes two fee-based online services at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign: the online version of the American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES); and the IRIS suite of funding-information services. The author discusses the pros and cons of in-house content-creation and concludes that academic libraries have the raw materials and the knowhow to create valuable new online services, especially reference services.

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