Digitization of Special Collections and Open Access

             In her article, Anne Kenney expands on principles regarding the mass digitization of special collections she and her colleagues in the Association of Research Libraries (link) wrote following a meeting of the ARL in 2009.  As of July of this year, the ARL endorses these principles.  In this report, principle three states that the libraries should think ahead to the widest range of people who would use the resource.  This would include other patrons that are not affiliated with that library, university, or archive.  This principle ensures that digitized archives would be available to many people, which would help new researchers in finding sources that may not have been available to them otherwise.  Does digitization of special collections close a portion of the “digital divide”?             

             After her discussion of the principles, Kenney speaks of one of the many ideas librarians and archivists have begun to realize of digitizing special collections. This idea is the creation of social digital communities to help the digitization process, using tools of the Web 2.0 generation.  The Institute of Museums and Library Services (link) gives out grants that help with digitizing Special Collections.  One of the 2009 grants was given to the University of California, Santa Cruz to digitize their Grateful Dead Archive and make it available on the Web.  One of the hopes for this endeavor is that the fans of the Grateful Dead, the “Deadhead” community, will then create a digital community to contribute to this archive.  This will allow the creation of a fuller archival preservation.  Would other archives benefit from such a venture? 

             Kenney then explains that “mass digitization of special collections and online access can lead to mass consumption” and speaks of Cornell University, her affiliation, which has provided access to digital archives to people who are unaffiliated with the university.  She explains that many users appreciate and use the open access archives, people with many different backgrounds and reasons for the usage. The question then becomes how many resources and how much attention should the institution pay to those users who are not affiliated with that university or library? Is there a line of “openness” that libraries, archives and universities should not cross?  How will Web 2.0 and social communities change that line of open access? 

Resources:

Kenney, A. (2009) The Collaborative Imperative: Special Collections in the Digital Age. Research Library Issues: A Bi-Monthly Report from ARL, CNL, and SPARC. 267. 20-29.  Retrieved from Publications of ARL (link)

Rappaport, S. (2009) UC Santa Cruz Receives $615,000 Grant to Digitize Grateful Dead Archive. Retrieved from http://news.ucsc.edu/2009/09/3237.html