UT announced its participation in Google’s national effort to make research as convenient as possible in January 2005. The Google Scholar Service consisted of two projects, the first of which allowed users to use the search engine Google to find out what books and journal articles related to their research could be found at libraries close to their current location. The second project—providing digital copies of research materials online—involved digitizing the entire collections of a limited number of very large libraries and providing digitized unique materials from libraries throughout the country.
UT focused on digitizing materials in special collections that are unique to Tennessee’s history and culture, such as the Great Smoky Mountains Regional Project, Civil War materials, and the Andrew Jackson special collection.