Richard Ovenden, the next 10 years in special collections
March 3rd, 2008 by MerrileeOur friends at UC Berkeley reminded me that I was going to blog about the talk that Richard Ovenden (Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford) gave for the CURL Research Support Task Force. I did not attend the talk, but my colleagues Jennifer and John did. Perhaps they can fill in with their own impressions in another post. My comments are based on this fine writeup from the Archives Hub Blog. I write this as a follow up to my posting on Fran Blouin’s talk.
Interesting points:
The role of special collections going forward: Ovenden sounded a positive note about the future of special collections. We’ve heard this before: when all that’s non-unique has been digitized or is easily sharable, what will increasingly define library collections is the unique and rare materials. I agree with this (and in fact, it’s highlighted in our now aging Information Contexts document, see page 3). But before we congratulate ourselves too much, I think we need to ask ourselves: is it possible to find our goodies? Or are they invisible? I’ve come to think that “hidden collections” refers not only to materials that are uncatalogued and unprocessed, but also to materials that are only findable via our OPACs. Just in the OPAC = hidden as far as I am concerned.
The EBBO effect: as materials are digitized and made available (even under a license as with Early English Books Online) how does this impact collecting practices? This is of high interest to me. Part of our Annual Meeting will focus on the impact of digitization on library collections and humanities scholarship (scroll down to June 4th).
The importance of evidence: Unlike Blouin, Ovenden notes a return to the importance of evidence, which would be good news for archives.
The important of getting it out there: This ties into the first point, the shifting role of special collections. It does you know good to have the good stuff if no one can find it. We can no longer stop with exposing materials in databases, on our websites, or in our OPACs.
The rise (and fall) of cataloging: Ovenden notes the lack of funding for cataloging in the UK. This is sad. I hope to see some concentrated effort on cataloging hidden materials in the US, alongside identifying the most effective ways to undertake that cataloging. Where can we invest to get the most bang for our buck. I’m quite hopeful about this.
Related posts:
March 5th, 2008 at 2:38 am
“I’ve come to think that “hidden collections” refers not only to materials that are uncatalogued and unprocessed, but also to materials that are only findable via our OPACs.”
- I very much agree with this comment but I think that many archivists, certainly in the UK, think that providing good electronic access via an OPAC is good enough. Somebody said to be recently that whilst the Archives Hub is great (it is a gateway for cross searching and providing machine-to-machine access) they already have their own catalogue on their website, which provides sufficent access.
To be fair, many archivists are snowed under with so many other tasks, and might consider even the provision of OPAC access to be an achievement. However, this attitude may be their undoing because we won’t continue to attract users of archives unless we use the right channels - we can’t expect people to ‘come to us’ - we need to go to them - our approach should be more on their terms and less on our terms.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Jane, thanks for leaving the comment. I agree with you 100%, although I think that once we do have some level of description, finding other places to push the description out to (beyond the OPAC) is an easier task. I’d like to see some metrics that tie greater exposure to greater use of collections. My colleague Jennifer Schaffner is trying to gather some use data from special collections reading rooms. Once we have some of these gate counts, we may be able to get someplace with this. If you have any ideas on sources of this kind of data for the UK, we’d love to hear from you!
March 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Hi Merrilee
Here’s an example for you:
One of our collections in the Bodleian is the Archives of the Conservative Party. In 2003 it was used by a total of 123 researchers who called up 1408 files. We then started a project to mount the catalogue online as an EAD finding aid. It went online toward the end of 2004 and has been growing ever since. In 2007 the archive was used by 352 researchers who called up 2624 files.