The ARL special collections initiative - Association of Research Libraries

Library Trends, Summer, 2003 by Joe A. Hewitt, Judith M. Panitch

ABSTRACT

IN NOVEMBER 2001, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced the formation of a Task Force on Special Collections charged with developing an action plan to address a set of issues deemed significant by the ARL Board and membership. The establishment of the task force followed several years of ARL interest and activity in the area of special collections. This paper will review the stages through which ARL's engagement with special collections evolved, describe the motivation and rationale for initiating this engagement, discuss the perspectives that ARL brings to special collections, and provide a status report on the work of the task force.

INTRODUCTION

In November 2001, the ARL announced the formation of a Task Force on Special Collections charged with developing an action plan to address a set of issues related to special collections deemed significant by the ARL Board and membership. The decision to establish the task force and the identification of issues listed in the charge emerged from a series of discussions in a variety of ARL groups and meetings dating back to the fall of 1997.

The discussion of special collections began in the Research Collections Committee (RCC) meeting on 15 October 1997 in response to a proposal by committee chair, Joe Hewitt. Over the course of several meetings, the committee had considered the possibility of adding new projects to its portfolio of activities. The predominant project then, as now, was the AAU-ARL Global Resources Program, a multifaceted, long-term initiative which was moving ahead under the leadership of Deborah Jakubs, the committee's staff liaison. In addition to monitoring the Global Resources Program, the RCC heard reports from and provided informal advice to the Center for Research Libraries and the Library of Congress. Archiving of electronic resources was discussed as a possible issue for RCC engagement but was referred to other groups. Several members of the committee were at work on a widely distributed discussion paper (Branin, Groen, & Thorin, 2002). The future of area studies librarianship was a frequent topic of discussion. Although these topics were sufficient to fill the committee's semiannual meeting agendas, there was a sense that the RCC needed to develop a new focus with long-term programmatic implications, similar in scale to the Global Resources Program. Committee members felt that some major issues related to research collections were not receiving the attention they deserved.

Special collections struck an immediate chord with members of the committee. The early discussions in the RCC were wide-ranging brainstorming sessions in which committee members expressed a variety of views on special collections. All of the issues that eventually emerged as part of the task force's agenda were raised in the initial discussions, along with others that were dropped as the agenda was refined and focused. Briefly described below are the points that surfaced in the early discussions that led to the decision to add special collections to the RCC's agenda,

RCC's Basic Perspectives on Special Collections

The RCC agreed that collecting, preserving, and providing access to the primary resources commonly referred to as "special collections" are part of the core mission of the research library. Members recognized at the beginning that the definition of the term "special collections" was open to discussion and that materials included in special collections varied from library to library. The committee avoided being sidetracked by detailed discussions of definition and tended to use the term in an inclusive sense with an understanding that special collections included rare books, manuscripts and archival collections, and many other types of materials that libraries might separate from general collections for special curatorial treatment. There was an apparent consensus, however, that at some point the committee would need to discuss the definition of special collections in the light of new formats and user demands. In general there was a tendency to associate special collections with "primary resources," however they might be defined, with an understanding that the collecting of primary resources is a distinguishing characteristic of a research library qualified to be a member of ARL. The committee assumed that all ARL libraries were involved in special collections to some degree.

Secondly, the RCC recognized that the special collections holdings of ARL libraries are a resource of great richness and variety representing an important component of the nation's intellectual capital. In addition to supporting the teaching and research missions of the parent institutions, the special collections provide an indispensable resource for national and international scholarship. Preserving and providing access to the primary resources in special collections involves an obligation on the part of individual libraries to the world of scholarship at large, and these collections are frequently the principal elements of a library's reputation and stature as a scholarly institution. The committee acknowledged that the value of special collections is not always recognized by budget-conscious academic administrators in some institutions, and it is necessary that librarians actively promote an understanding of their value to the institution.