Forging the Future of Special Collections

The wealth of unique content that libraries hold in their special collections, combined with the explosive development of digitization, has enabled special collections over the past twenty years to move out of the shadows of libraries and to become highly visible major institutional assets. What libraries must now contemplate is how to continue this momentum and exploit these invaluable assets. To do so, library administrators will need to articulate how best to build 21st century collections, how to make those collections accessible globally, and how to provide the expertise and services necessary to support collection use. These issues are of vital importance not only to special collections librarians, but also to library administrators, and to the donors and rare booksellers who have been the mainstay of library special collection development in the past.Expanding upon a very successful national colloquium, this book explores the factors that governed the growth and use of special collections in the past, current challenges facing special collections, and emerging opportunities for the future. By tapping the very diverse expertise of a world-class array of authors, including librarians, university faculty, book dealers, collectors and donors, the chapters of this book present a variety of issues to identify how libraries and their college or university faculty can best collaborate to ensure students become aware of resources available to them, and for faculty in their own research to mine these scholarly treasures to advance knowledge. Forging the Future of Special Collections is organized thematically rather than as a strict past/present/future chronology. Some authors will take a theoretical approach to the questions, while others will employ a practical approach that may include case studies. This volume promises to be a seminal work in the canon of the literature about library special collections. While acknowledging the historic strengths of special collections, the authors will move beyond that to understand the emerging requirements of the 21st century knowledge ecosystem, and chart a course for the next decade and beyond.