Farmers have taken half of the Everglades, and developers would love to drain the rest of it. Their impacts threaten the 2.3 million acres of subtropical marsh preserved in Everglades National Park, but recently efforts have been made to save and restore the region’s ecosystems. You can learn all about it at the Everglades Digital Library (EDL).
The EDL is a service of the Digital Collections Center at Miami’s Florida International University. It was established in 1996 to support research, education, decision making, and information resource management within the greater Everglades community. Since that time, the project has grown to serve patrons from around the world with Web-accessible digital collections, the online reference service “Ask An Everglades Librarian,” and other online information services.

Much of the documentary history of south Florida is scattered in different collections, so the EDL actively collaborates with numerous scientific, government, library, and educational organizations. Their activities include cooperative grant writing, cataloging and indexing of unique materials, digitization and web delivery of popular and important items, materials conservation, and a reference desk. The whole package is organized by the Collection Workflow Integration System (CWIS), a software package created by the NSDL Pathways partner Internet Scout Project.