The University of Michigan Press/Michigan Publishing and the University of Michigan Library IT announced the beta launch of the new digital tool, Fulcrum. This platform uses the Hydra/Fedora Framework and “helps publishers present the full richness of their authors’ research outputs in a durable, discoverable, and flexible form.” During this beta phase, the platform will feature its first project, The Director’s Prism: E.T.A Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde, forthcoming from Northwestern University Press.

Fulcrum is focused on the presentation of digital source and supplemental materials that cannot be represented adequately in print form. Fulcrum allows for a richer experience and deeper understanding for the reader and enables authors to make better, multi-faceted arguments. The platform readily supports multimedia content, including playback for audio and video files and pan-zoom capability for high resolution images. All content is discoverable and preserved via durable URLs. Structured metadata and faceted search results also allow for further exploration of the materials.