Many thanks to all who responded to my earlier query about the promotion of library special/hidden collections, with special thanks to the person who said they normally don’t reply to postings on Lis-Link but thought this was especially interesting. I received 17 responses in total, from HE institutions (10), Oxbridge departmental (1) and college libraries (3), and other information units (3).
Organisational structures differ, but predominantly Special Collections falls under the responsibility of Information and Library Services, although not always under the Library (at least one institution, a notable Art College, reported that hierarchically “Special Collections and Library are two discrete, equal units”).
Promotional activities also vary, with finances, staff availability and institutional priorities affecting what is, and what can be, done by way of collection exposure and promotion. Activities reported, grouped by general heading, are:
Cataloguing and digitisation
• Cataloguing collections locally
• Including details (may be short title or collection level) on external union catalogues and databases, such as COPAC, ESTC, AIM25, Archives Hub, VADS and FindIt!
• Digitising rare books within a collection (not necessarily making them public)
Exhibitions, tours and the like
• Hosting internal exhibitions, both small/informal (permanent display case) and large/formal
• Virtual (online) exhibitions
• Loaning collection material to external exhibitions
• Running tours and talks for users/visitors
• Marketing activities and materials on cross-sectoral sites e.g. Culture24
Academic outreach, liaison and collaboration
• Raising awareness of collections in inductions for academics and research students
• Encouraging and working on projects with academics to integrate collection material into PG and UG modules
• Awarding research studentship to work on the materials in collection
• Corresponding with known academics/researchers working in areas of collection strength
• Hosting a conference related to an element of the collection
• Participating in conferences, presenting papers about a collection
• Writing and publishing journal articles about a collection
• Publishing articles on collections periodically in in-house publications
• Uploading papers based on materials in collections onto institutional repository
Publicity and guidance materials
• Maintaining a dedicated website for special collections
• Producing printed collection brochures and leaflets
• Producing online and/or printed collection guides
• Getting local collection website linked to from relevant external sites
• Putting digitised/photographic images from a collection on an institutional Flickr account or similar
• Creating broadcasts/podcasts on collection-related matters
Income generation
• Applying for grants
• Selling postcards of selected art works within collection
• Offering a book sponsorship programme
It's given me some ideas and areas to consider (the absence of specific Web 2.0/social media usage, bar Flickr, is interesting). If the listing aids anyone else, all the better.
Best wishes, Ross
Ross Connell
Academic Support Officer, University of Warwick
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