As Director of Digital Initiatives for the Northern Illinois University Libraries, Drew secures grant funding for the digitization of library resources, including materials drawn from the collections of other institutions in collaborative projects, with a special emphasis on historical materials. He is also responsible for insuring that the library archives and preserves digitized materials in keeping with international standards and best practices.

Expertise and Interests

Drew's work has explored the World Wide Web's potential as a vehicle for the dissemination of a variety of historical materials. In addition to presenting searchable primary source materials such as texts and images, as can typically be found in digital libraries, historical digitization projects under his direction provide their users with original interpretive materials in text and video formats, as well as data presented with Geographic Information Systems technology.