Meeting of SHeLF at Senate House, at which at least one other member of this list was present, on rare books and special collections (framed, printed); where there wasn't a chance to ask a question, or make a comment, but it seems to me that special collections have been taking a hammering and rolled into general collections.
This seems to me a destruction of value, as value lies in the speciality of the collection.
First I noticed it when development studies collections were taken away, then I noticed it with local collections being rolled into record offices (which aren't libraries).
We have enough trouble with the internet taking away the semantics of collection organisation through internetworking, I think there is a need for establishing subject based .. and here not ASLIB, for that covers a subject, and also not limited to printed books, for the speciality of the collection involves much else beside. I was looking in St.Albans Abbey yesterday, tracking the illuminated manuscripts which had resided there, and think we can use the new technology to rebuild special collections, if only virtually, so they can be revisited, even if in many different places.
The idea of rare books is a bit of a distraction but I can see through the history of bibliography how all that happened, and noticed that there is a special interest group with this sig, but the matter remains, where to put the brackets and the semantics of the ands. #brandoids is my tag for this matter.
John Lindsay
Reader in Information Systems Design
Kingston University,
Kingston Upon Thames,
London.
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