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Subject: Special collections I've put in the original article, as I think the matter needs to be pushed further. In the arts and humanities, it seems to me that the subjects themselves exist only because some sort of special collection was built. In the sciences the SMT rules on knowledge organisation change differently, and that would need a different history, but the history itself will be dependent on the existence of special collections. Whether there are other classes and categories I'm not sure. By destroying a special collection, (there is incidently an extreme case at the Wellcome in London on the Institute of Sexology, where the collection was destroyed in a rather dramatic manner) which in general means merging it into a general collection, some element of history, the arts, the humanities, is itself destroyed. Now this assertion needs a literature search, as does any assertion, otherwise you can't know whether something is known by everyone, and the destruction of the Library Association library, by merging it into the British Library, is a large case in point. The organisational form of the library then effects the practice. I'm trying in parallel to trace the history of information systems, and the birth of the internet in Britain (or London). Some lis-linkers might have seen the Information Age exhibition at the Science Museum, another case of the meanings of words meandering, and the www fest at the South Bank over the weekend. I'm afraid if we don't make the case for libraries and their organisation there wont be libraries about which to make a case. here follows original: 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 John Lindsay Reader in Information Systems Design Kingston University, Kingston Upon Thames, London. ________________________________________ This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email Security System.