Presentation
Extra special: merging special collections with university archives
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
(2013)
Abstract
With budget constraints and hiring freezes becoming the new normal, and users expecting more open access to libraries’ unique primary source materials regardless of their physical location, university libraries must do more with less. Special collections and university archives departments that have been administered separately for decades are now merging in order to share service points, staffing, and climate-controlled storage – as well as digitization services. The benefits of undertaking this organizational change are offset by the challenges of merging different organizational cultures and the logistics of modifying things like signage. When the heads of rare books, photographic archives, university archives, and digital initiatives at one state university library began planning their merger, they sent out a survey to gauge best practices from others who have been through the process. This poster reports the results of the survey and how the state university library implemented its merger.
Keywords
- Special collections,
- merger,
- archives,
- University archives
Disciplines
Publication Date
April 12, 2013
Citation Information
Delinda Stephens Buie, Caroline Daniels, Rachel I. Howard and Elizabeth E. Reilly. "Extra special: merging special collections with university archives" Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (2013) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/elizabeth-reilly/9/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-ND International License.