Countless libraries are working to expand to the Internet, and NIU’s library is no exception.

Founders Memorial Library contains more than 25,000 full-text journals on its Web site, said University Libraries professor Byron Anderson.

“It’s one of the key directions libraries are moving in the future,” Anderson said.

The Web site contains more than 200 research databases for students and faculty to utilize, along with several government publications and newspapers, Anderson said.

One notable feature of the site is its digitized projects. Digitization director Drew VandeCreek said the projects separate NIU from the majority of libraries.

“We build our collections of information around a theme,” VandeCreek said. “The vast majority of the projects are historical.”

One of the more advanced projects is Lincoln/Net, a collection of Abraham Lincoln’s writings and documents dating from 1830 to 1861. In addition, the collection also features videos, slide shows and songs.

“We had students from the music department and we recorded them,” VandeCreek said, referring to the 19th century sheet music available on some projects. “We put it as streaming audio files on the Web.”

Several of the collections also feature interpretive works by historians, which VandeCreek described as being useful for non-experts. In some cases, video clips of historians are available.

Lincoln/Net has received praise from several organizations, including the National Endowment for Humanities and Gettysburg College, which awarded VandeCreek the 2007 Electronic Lincoln Prize for the Web site’s content.

For a full listing of the library’s databases and digitized projections, visit Founders Memorial Library’s Web site at www.ulib.niu.edu.