Mind the Gaps

I’m now writing  up the final report of the project.  The first draft is due with the Board next week.  This will survey what is going on, and most importantly look at what can be done, by individuals, institutions, groups and the sector.  It’s a major task as you can imagine.  It is good to start writing up because it highlights gaps in evidence or knowledge very clearly.

Can you help with any gaps?

I currently lack evidence on:

• national libraries – challenges, where these differ from other libraries.
• collections that are not managed as part of “special collections”.
• projects and activities using collections in subjects outside the humanities.

I also need more on the IMPACT of projects and activities using collections – how these help with mission and what difference they make.   The Board and the Advisory Group will help, of course, and please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

Studying with SCARLET

The SCARLET Project at the University of Manchester can help libraries explore the exciting potential of augmented reality in making the most of unique and distinctive collections.  As far as I can tell, most use of AR with collections has centred on the public experience, adding a new layer to exhibitions, historic buildings and the like.  This JISC-funded project looks in particular at its use in undergraduate teaching and learning, with encouraging and inspiring results.

See the Project blog for full details of the team’s work.  I reflect on a very useful SCARLET workshop in in this article on my blog.

Aberdeen Adventures Online

The presentations from the RLUK Aberdeen meeting on 29 and 30 March are now online.  They include my talk on the project at half-time and Jackie Dooley of OCLC on the last stages of the Survey.   I didn’t catch them all myself; I did hear and would recommend Chris Banks on the story of the amazing new Aberdeen University library and John MacColl for making sense of the many organisations with whom RLUK can work.

Aberdeen Adventures

Just returned from a very productive RLUK conference in sunny (yes, really!) Aberdeen.  The Thursday afternoon featured a session about the Unique and Distinctive strand.   I discussed progress so far; the OCLC and UK folks working on the Survey outlined some possible recommendations to be made in the Survey report.  We then had fun with stickers, choosing the recommendations that we thought most important and discussing them.  This led to lots of thought-provoking debate.

I’ll try to blog about some of the issues that cropped up over the coming weeks.  I also had many conversations with other delegates which helped inform this project.

Very grateful to all who took part and to Chris Banks, Siobhan Convery and their colleagues for wonderful hospitality and tours of their stunning new library.

Discovering Archives

On 21 March I presented a Quickfire Poster Session about the Project to the Archives Discovery Forum at the National Archives.  The Forum enables archivists to catch up on exciting new projects and developments in online access to archives and archival data and is always well attended, so it was a great way to bring the Project to lots of archivists.

The important work of the UK Archives Discovery Network is of course a key area for the Project to consider.  Archives are by definition unique and (usually) distinctive and discovery is about making more of them by exploiting new technologies, for the benefit of users and parent organisations.

 

See you in the Silver City

The Unique and Distinctive Project has its own strand at the forthcoming RLUK Members’ Meeting.  The venue?  The amazing new University Library at Aberdeen (get a taste of the building from this Guardian article and, yes, there will be tours on offer!).   The date?  2pm 29 March 2012 .

Wow! Shiny! University of Aberdeen's new library seen alongside the existing Queen Mother Library - from chrisabanks flickr stream (all rights reserved).

The session will be a chance for RLUK Members to find out where we are with the Project at the half-way point (eek!) and to feed in their own ideas and experiences.  In particular, we will be sharing the fascinating findings of the OCLC/RLUK Survey: really high-quality data about the reality of our special collections.

I look forward to seeing and chatting to lots of interested people and to some exciting discussion about the futures for our fantastic collections.  See you there?

The Advisory Group

And here’s the members of the advisory group, which is made up of Special Collections librarians from RLUK libraries.  They will be helping with their insight and expertise, suggesting case studies, examples and evidence and helping to make sure the project delivers its benefits to our organisations and our users.  Thanks to them, and to the many other people who have offered help and insight so far!

• Rachel Beckett (Manchester)
• Siobhan Convery (Aberdeen)
• Sue Donnelly (LSE)
• Adrian Edwards (British Library)
• Sheila  Hingley (Durham)
• Lesley Richmond (Glasgow)
• Katie Sambrook  (KCL)
• Chris Sheppard (Leeds)
• Robin Smith (NLS)
• Jill Whitelock (Cambridge)
• Christine Wise (Senate House Libraries)
• Melanie Wood (Newcastle)
• Susan Worrall (Birmingham)

PS March 2012:  There is some swapping about of names by organisations deciding who is best suited to represent them, so the list is continuing to change.  I’m also still open to including more members, from RLUK libraries or partner groups which aren’t yet involved.

Hullo COPAC! The Collections Management Project

How do we KNOW which of our collections are unique or distinctive?  While archives in general by definition are unique, it is much harder to identify distinctiveness in collections of published works.  The COPAC Collections Management project, based at the University of Leeds, and supported by the RLUK and MIMAS, aims to help.

Cover of Hullo Villars! Souvenir of annual ski-ing revue, by Maurice Reckitt, Peart-Binns Collections, University of Bradford. A personal favourite, this 20th century work does not appear to be held by any other COPAC library!

Unique and distinctive works within the main stock of a research library are a particular concern.  For instance, late 19th century and early 20th century books and pamphlets would not necessarily be automatically transferred to Special Collections services, but are often far more physically vulnerable than early printed books and may be very rare.  Most Special Collections automatically take all hand-press era printed books, with a cut-off date somewhere between 1800 and 1850.  Moving this to 1900 say would safeguard many vulnerable works, but the Special Collections service may simply not have the capacity to take them.

What is needed is a way to know which materials in main stock really are unique or distinctive, so they can either be transferred to Special Collections or otherwise managed in a way that recognises their qualities.  COPAC is already a vital resource for librarians in assessing rarity, but the COPAC CM Project takes this to new levels by developing tools to identify locations of holdings of batches of items and, crucially, to present the results in visually appealing and understandable ways.

Hullo Villars! is one of the 100 Objects from the University of Bradford: here is its story.  And I must share one of my favourite blogs, full of wonderful and distinctive 1910s books: the Tower Project at Cambridge University Library, which recently featured Jane Austen and synchronised swimming (not in the same piece, unfortunately).

Re-skilling for Research

This project is part of a wider discussion: how libraries/librarians demonstrate their value to their parent organisations.  Being a nice thing or a good thing is no longer enough in times of spending cuts and “marketisation” of higher education: we need numbers, metrics, proof that we are relevant, communicated in the right way.

Like Special Collections services, subject specialist librarians in universities are under particular pressure now: their role could be seen as obsolete when so much can be found by students and staff just by googling.  Actually they are needed more than ever: users need help in making sense of the huge and complex variety of information available online free or paid-for and in continuing print collections too.

All of which introduces a new report from RLUK, Re-skilling for Researchers by Mary Auckland, which maps the changing needs of researchers and the skills and knowledge librarians will need to support them.  The report overlaps in many interesting ways with UDC and will be a useful source of evidence and ideas for our piece of work.

Advisors Wanted!

Postscript 6 February: There has been a fantastic response to this, and I now have a large group of RLUK librarians ready to act as the formal advisors, including some national library representation.  However, I’m really interested in hearing from anyone else who wishes to contribute more informally.

The Unique and Distinctive Collections project will be supported by an advisory group of RLUK special collections librarians.  I already have a good number of librarians who have offered and we nicely cover the spectrum of RLUK libraries.  However, if anyone else is keen to get involved, please let me know.   I would particularly welcome interest from national library staff who are not so far represented.

I’m trying to ensure that this will not be too demanding for those who are kind enough to offer help.  We would mostly be in touch by email as I call for case study ideas, bounce suggestions and so on, but meetings will be helpful later in the project.  Ideally these would be arranged to coincide with events many of us will be attending.

Input into the project is of course not limited to those in RLUK or on the advisory group: we are looking for insight and examples from as many sources as possible, all of which will inform the project even if it does not get specifically mentioned in the final report.   If you are doing something innovative with your collections, or if you have particular queries you want to share, please do get in touch.