In today's library environment, patrons have near the totality of knowledge at their fingertips; digital
collections and online catalogs allow patrons to view thousands of items with the click of a few
buttons. The advancements and opportunities available in modern libraries beg the question:
how did we get here? Our exhibit "Discovery and Information Access in the Library at Illinois"
will highlight the history of technology in the library, specifically technological innovations and
contributions from UIUC libraries. Our exhibit will begin in the mid-20th century, displaying images
of UIUC libraries from the 1940's alongside a physical pipe that was used to move call-slips
throughout the library. Through the 70's and 80's, libraries began moving past vacuum tubes and
dumbwaiters and adopted early computers, such as the LCS library computer terminal, leading to
the creation of the online catalog. In the 90’s, the creation of the World Wide Web moved more than
just the catalog online, and the Mosaic browser system, developed on-campus at the NCSA by
Marc Andreesen, allowed this information to be searchable. The DLI-I and DLI-II (Digital Libraries
Initiative) projects at Illinois libraries spearheaded moving journals online and invented the Digital
Object Identifier (DOI), which allows millions of journal articles to be found across the vast web.
Finally, the 2000’s brought along improved searching mechanisms like Easy Search, and library
spaces such as the IDEA lab allow patrons to interact with state-of-the-art technologies. With the
ease of browsing modern library collections, it is easy to overlook the multitude of developments that
took place to allow this technology to exist, and our exhibit will highlight these important innovations.
Curated by: Leah DiCiesare, Karina Cooper, Andres Molina-Alverez, Kendall Neumann, and Genna Hilbing
