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The voices of West Indian writers in the 1950s changed the landscape for Literature emerging out of the West Indies. These powerful literary voices were a means of creating and recording a facet of West Indian history and cultural heritage. West Indian writers wrote their stories through their own eyes. John Hearne was one of the most eloquent voices among them. He became a known voice in the West Indian literary world, using his recognition to facilitate the indigenous West Indian Literature genre’s development. He was also a prominent Jamaican political and social commentator. The John Hearne archive not only produced an important historical picture of the development of the West Indian Literature genre, but West Indian political history, and changes in the cultural and social fabric of the West Indian society, with special emphasis on Jamaica. This paper aims to present this archive as a fundamental body of primary resources for historical research.

With the emerging prominence of digital humanities scholarship, academic libraries are taking steps to reevaluate approaches to research services. This study explores the nature of digital humanities research within the academic library setting, emphasizing special collections. The role of academic libraries is in flux with respect to the larger digital research environment. Academic institutions have varying definitions of digital humanities and offer a wide range of services for patrons working in the field, often necessitating an ad hoc support model.This study describes a questionnaire survey of academic special collections libraries nation-wide, and four semi-structured interviews with librarians in two public universities in North Carolina. Surveys and interviews were conducted to determine the types of research support requested by patrons related to digital humanities, and the various ways in which academic libraries accommodate those requests.

This study aims to understand the gaps in the education of future special collections professionals by examining syllabi for rare book and special collections librarianship courses. The history of library education will show that special collections coursework has not historically held an important place in library school curricula. Today, however, courses in rare book and special collections librarianship are an essential means by which future special collections professionals develop the specialized skills needed for success in the profession. Using content analysis, this study compares syllabi for special collections librarianship courses at ALA-accredited library and information science programs with ACRL’s Guidelines: Competencies for Special Collections Professionals to identify gaps and overlooked areas in library school curricula.

This paper considers how collaborative educational programs for using primary source materials are initiated and sustained between special collections librarians and school groups of young adults in grades 6-12. In particular, this study focused on on-going programs that met more than once where students used primary sources. Semi-structured interviews with three teachers, a school media specialist, a museum historian, a state librarian, and two public librarians were conducted to identify effective practices of four such collaborations conducted between 2009 and 2017: Brooklyn Connections, the Bangor, Maine Life on a Tidal River online exhibits, a Daily Record transcription project in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the R.O.A.D. Project in Indianapolis, Indiana. Findings point to common factors for successful programs including accessible and interesting primary sources, providing students time for meaningful research, delivering help from experts, providing customized content, proficiency working with middle or high school students, and nurturing relationships for partnerships.

This study examines the experiences of a sample of users of the Wilson Library Special Collections. Issues of accessibility, outreach effectiveness, and user satisfaction are addressed, including access to digitized collections, user awareness of outreach activities, and patron experiences with the spaces and resources available for their use. Survey results are discussed and suggest that, from this small sample, user priorities and those of archivists may differ in their scope. When developing collections, outreach programs, collection websites, and other user tools and spaces, special collections professionals should take into account their desired audience and examine their needs as objectively as possible to make such activities as successful as possible.

Imagine a UC library with more than half a million volumes, carefully acquired and protected, many of them singular or not commonly held by others in the world. Imagine the contents lining thirteen and a half miles from end to end—more than one Bancroft Library’s worth of material—but all of it invisible and inaccessible to users. That library represents the self-reported aggregate of the unprocessed backlog of special collections and archives materials owned by UC. The UC Libraries have the opportunity to bring such a library online, and make its contents discoverable and accessible to researchers, within this next decade. The UC Libraries also have the opportunity to prevent the creation of such a backlog of newly created scholarly content, much of it in digital format. Collective commitment is needed to invest the time and initial resources to follow through and to capture these opportunities.