The title
of this presentation, “The Significance of Special Collections,” is a statement
of fact. But is it also a question? As a declaration it reaches a dead end:
either special collections are significant or they are not. But as a question,
it opens several lines of inquiry. For example, significant to whom or to what?
And significant in the past, in the present or in the future? Or for all time?
Garrett
Park Archives, where I work, is a type of special collection. We have a small
library, a stock of town records dating back to the incorporation of the town
in 1898, some artifacts, and some donated private collections which include
residential files, records of various civic groups, and oral histories. Our
nearby neighbors in Kensington,
Rockville and Chevy Chase call their collections historical societies, and that,
in essence, is what we are, a historical society, a memory institution.
A special
collection is significant as a memory institution to the community it covers
and represents. In the case of Moorland Spingarn, that community is Howard
University students, faculty and researchers, in particular, and the community
of people of African descent in general.
I read in
the Libguide that Moorland Spingarn Research Center is comprised of four content
units: the university archives, a library division, a print and photo unit, and
a manuscript division. And a fifth unit consists of digital collections, both
born digital assets and items digitized on site. This brings us to an
additional significance of a special collection.
For
promoting access, for preservation considerations, for space and cost
constraints, digitization is by all accounts the path forward. Digitization of
records and actual items across content types, like books, photographs,
manuscripts, archive and museum artifacts presents a great opportunity to apply
common cataloguing standards and common taxonomies that will serve as a multiplying
effect for additional access opportunities for students, faculty, researchers,
and community users, both on site, and in an online environment.
Additionally,
it could provide avenues for cooperation and collaboration across institutions
in the future that may or may not exist in the present. I am thinking here
about the Library of Congress and the massive universe of Smithsonian museums.
But this also could include smaller institutions and learning centers as well.
Of course,
digitization is not a panacea. We are already seeing digital decay in
degradations in the quality of storage media (try playing that CD you bought
twenty years ago). File glut, bit corruption, hardware failure, and
obsolescence of formats over time are all examples. Document formatting changes
over time. In general, entropy rules – things gradually decline from order to
disorder.
Even the
internet is not a cure all, though from where we sit it looks like it may last
forever. One internet guru says, “If it doesn’t exist on the Internet, it
doesn’t exist.” He points out the obvious, that access to special collections
on the internet can promote greater access to that collection. But he makes a
more significant point – when the collection is also connected to a learning
institution, there are added benefits: the institution gives added credibility
to the online resource, and the online resource brings a much larger audience
of students, scholars and researchers to the learning institution. Without
going into too much detail, a center like Moorland-Spingarn connected to Howard
University has built-in advantages that a larger center like Schomburg lacks.
Finally,
much of my MSLIS course work revolved around a growing trend of convergence
across cultural heritage institutions, galleries, libraries, archives and
museums. I am including a list of readings from various courses at the end of
this presentation. Convergence ultimately results in the creation of a
networked information society with online access to all facets of information
in the social and informational space. The opportunity to approach and take
part in this convergence movement may be the greatest significance offered by
special collection, a significance shared equally by staff, students, faculty,
scholars and the community at large.
Thank you
for this opportunity to have this conversation.
References and additional reading
Bray,
David (2007) ‘Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theoretical Lens for Organizations
Confronting Hypertubulent Environments,’ in IFIP International Federation for
Information Processing, Volume 235, Organizational Dynamics of Technology-Based
Innovation: Diversifying the Research Agenda, eds. McMaster, T., Wastell, D.,
Ferneley, E., and DeGross, J. (Boston: Springer), pp. 457-462. Accessed January
14, 2019 at http://dl.ifip.org/db/conf/ifip8-6/ifip8-6-2007/Bray07.pdf
Erway,
Ricky, and Jennifer Schaffner (2017) ‘Shifting Gears: Gearing Up to Get into
the Flow’. 2nd Ed. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. doi:10.25333/C3159X. Accessed
January 14, 2019 at https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/2017/oclcresearch-shifting-gears-second-edition-2017.pdf
Fox.
Robert (2011) “Forensics of digital librarianship”, OCLC Systems &
Services: International digital library perspectives, Vol. 27 Issue: 4,
pp.264-271, https://doi.org/10.1108/10650751111182560
Goldsmith,
Kenneth (2007) ‘If it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist.’ Poetry
Foundation, March, 2007, Accessed on January 14, 2019 at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/03/if-it-doesnt-exist-on-the-internet-it-doesnt-exist.
Gorzalski,
Matt (2016) ‘Archivists and Thespians: A Case Study and Reflections on Context
and Authenticity in a Digitization Project,’ The American Archivist Vol. 79,
No. 1 Spring/Summer 2016 161–185, Accessed January 14, 2019 at http://americanarchivist.org/doi/10.17723/0360-9081.79.1.161
Marty,
Paul F. (2009) ‘An introduction to digital convergence: libraries, archives,
and museums in the information age.’ Museum Management and Curatorship Vol. 24,
No. 4, December 2009, 295-298. Accessed January 14, 2019 at https://marty.cci.fsu.edu/preprints/marty_mmc2009.pdf
.
Trant,
Jennifer (2009) ‘Emerging convergence? Thoughts on museums, archives,
libraries, and professional training’, Museum Management and Curatorship, 24:
4, 369 — 387. Accessed January 14, 2019 at https://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i290-ppos/reading/EmergingConvergence.pdf
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