JAN 24

Putting "Special" in the "Collective Collection" Forum

Program Officer Jennifer Schaffner hosted this meeting for rare book and special collections librarians to discuss the unique place of special collections in this emerging collective collection.

This event has passed.

Why would anyone in special collections care about the "collective collection"? What are the consequences of participating or sitting it out? We invite OCLC Research Library Partners and other colleagues to a free forum during Bibliography Week in New York, graciously hosted by the New-York Historical Society from 2:00-4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 24 January 2013.

The "collective collection" is a term used to express increasingly widespread reliance on digital and shared print repositories, as well as interdependent approaches to collection management. Research libraries generally are developing an ecosystem focused on free and licensed digital materials, print collections (retention of which is being reevaluated), shared print agreements, regional consortia, and resource sharing.

This forum offered an opportunity for rare book and special collections librarians to discuss the unique place of special collections in this emerging collective collection.

  • How do comprehensive academic library collections and subject-specific collections—such as those of independent research libraries and their close kin—see themselves in the new collections environment?
  • Do library directors have changing expectations of special collections?
  • Should curators adapt their collecting policies to take collective approaches into account?
  • When appetites are whet by surrogates, is it inevitable that more researchers will want to see the original materials?
  • Are new approaches to public services suggested?
  • Should we formulate regional special collections collaborations?
  • Perhaps most importantly, can special collections more effectively serve the research community through such collaborations?

 

 

Date

24 January 2013

Time

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Eastern Standard Time, North America [UTC -5]

Location

New York, NY

Venue

New-York Historical Society