Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:21:12.026Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Special collections in a digital future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

David Pearson*
Affiliation:
City of London Guildhall, Aldermanbury, London EC2V 7HH, UK
Get access

Abstract

As the world of information resources becomes more and more digital, what is the role of special collections in libraries? This paper highlights their growing importance as unique and distinctive assets in an increasingly levelled landscape. It also stresses the value of opening up access to these collections through large-scale digitisation, reflecting on the role the profession should play in leading that work.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The British Library, http://www.bl.uk/.Google Scholar
2. UK Research Reserve, http://www.ukrr.ac.uk/.Google Scholar
3. Erway, Ricky and Schaffner, Jennifer, Shifting gears: gearing up to get into the flow (Dublin, OH: OCLC, 2007), http://www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2007-02.pdf.Google Scholar
4. JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), Enriching digital resources, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/enrichingdigi.aspx.Google Scholar
5. University of Oxford, The First World War digital poetry database, http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/wwllit/.Google Scholar
7. The design success of Penguin was recently celebrated in Baines, Phil, Penguin by design: a coverstory 1935-2005 (London: Allen Lane, 2005).Google Scholar
8. The classic text on this point is McKenzie, D. F., Bibliography and the sociology of texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9. These points are explored more fully by Potten, Ed, ‘Who needs rare book collections?’ Library & information update (June 2009): 3032.Google Scholar
10. Pearson, David, Books as history: the importance of books beyond their texts (London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2008).Google Scholar
11. Katz, Stanley, ‘Form and substance in the electronic age,’ in Rare book and manuscript libraries in the twenty-first century, ed. Wendorf, Richard, 1721 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 18.Google Scholar