We granted $5.0 million to Harvard University Library to extend its Open Collections Programme (OCP). The Programme was established in 2002 and makes materials from all Harvard’s libraries, archives and museums freely available to everyone on the internet.

OCP aims to increase the availability and use of all of Harvard’s historical resources for teaching, learning, and research.

Selected materials in broad topic areas are digitised and made accessible through the internet and Harvard's library catalogues. Thus the programme provides a single, coherent access point to materials that have traditionally been dispersed across the University.

Access to all digitised materials, regardless of original format, is made possible by:

• Browsing the entire collection by topic
• Browsing portions of the collection by a person, organization, or event that plays a significant role in the relevant field
• Searching for a term or phrase in the full text of digitised books
• Locating digitised materials by searching library catalogues

The first collection to benefit has been ‘Women Working, 1870-1930’, which explores women’s roles in the US economy between the Civil War and the Great Depression. The collection includes primary sources that document conditions in the home and workplace; costs of living, recreation, health and hygiene; policies and regulations governing the workplace; and other social issues. It includes over 2,250 books, 1,000 photographic images and 10,000 pages from several manuscript collections. ‘Women Working' allows students, teachers, and researchers to access digital materials, which can then be used in course syllabuses and lesson plans, or to learn the discipline of working with primary sources.

The second collection will relate to emigration and immigration to the US between 1789 and 1930. Our grant will suppport incidental costs for the program and three new collections - the first of which (on contagious and infectious diseases) is under way.