The American Library Association recently published a new book based upon a 2014 colloquium organized by and held at Kelvin Smith Library. The new book, Forging the Future of Special Collections, was co-edited by Melissa Hubbard, the Kelvin Smith Library head of special collections and archives; Arnold Hirshon, associate provost and university librarian; and Robert H. Jackson, the Kelvin Smith Library Distinguished Visiting Scholar.
The book discusses how special collections departments of libraries have been transformed by increased digitization and educational outreach efforts into unique and highly visible major institutional assets. It also provides a series of essays by world-class leaders in the field as to what libraries must now do to articulate and implement a dynamic strategic vision for their special collections.
The book is unique in that the essays bring together the thoughts not only of librarians, but also of university faculty, book dealers, collectors and donors. Hirshon and Jackson were the primary organizers of the 2014 colloquium, but the author of each essay was encouraged to expand upon their original presentations to provide a timely resource for special collections librarians, administrators, academics, and rare book dealers and collectors.
Among the topics included in the book are:
- The factors that governed the growth and use of special collections in the past;
- Ways to build 21st-century special collections that are accessible globally, and how to provide the expertise and services necessary to support collection use;
- Developing and maintaining strong relationships between libraries and collectors, with special attention paid to the importance of donor relations;
- Critical information on how libraries and their institutions’ faculty can best collaborate to ensure students and other researchers are aware of the resources available to them;
- Forward-thinking approaches to applying digital scholarship techniques to special collections materials;
- How changes in the way scholars and authors work (from analog to digital) increases the importance of archives in preserving the aspects of humanity that elevate us; and,
- Sustainable and scalable approaches to promoting the use of special collections in the digital age (including the roles of social media and crowdsourcing to bring collections directly to the user).
