Search

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History recently conducted a two-year project to process and connect the archives and artifacts of archaeologists Ralph and Rose Solecki, most famous for their work at the sites of Shanidar Cave and Zawi Chemi Shanidar in northern Iraq. Through a collaboration between the archivally-focused National Anthropological Archives and the object-focused Department of Anthropology collections management group, the Ralph S. and Rose L. Solecki Papers and Artifacts Project sought to set an example for archaeological collections and archives stewardship by preserving the association between archaeological specimens and archival records through an integrative methodology of archival processing and specimen cataloging to increase their value to future researchers. Further, the project provides a case study intended to contribute to interdisciplinary conversations about the enduring legacy of archaeologists and their collections within archives and museums through collaborative collections and archives management.

Computers and other digital communication media have replaced paper and pencil from the writer’s desk. This development has confronted special collections with a problem, as digital papers are difficult to process using established digital preservation strategies, because of their individual and unique nature. According to the proposal suggested in this paper, the creators should instead be involved in the preservation process, and special collections should integrate pre-custodial forms of curation within their range of tasks. The article outlines the use of a cloud architecture as a suitable instrument for accomplishing this task. The benefits and the prospects for such a collection cloud are exposed and discussed.

Although China has a long history of cartography and map collections, the condition of China's map collections and accessibility to geographic and digital data is still unknown to world counterparts. This paper discusses the paper and digital map collections situation in China from the perspective of multiple collections and from sharing services. Paper map collections are introduced through a survey and analysis of the National Library of China, Peking University Library, and Beijing Normal University Library. Dynamic map service Web sites and the related Web infrastructure are introduced as being representative of digital map collections in China. The Data Sharing Platform of Earth System Science (DSPESS) of the National Science and Technology Infrastructure of China, which has operated for more than ten years, is used as a case study to analyze digital map data sets sharing and services. Digital map data collection characteristics, the data sharing policy, user distribution, and the stewardship staff o...

In 2015, in cooperation with ProQuest, Jisc commissioned this study of the Impacts of Digital Collections focused on two particular collections: Early English Books Online (EEBO) and House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP). These two collections are just a fraction of the number of collections that Jisc has purchased on behalf of its member institutions. While an understanding of these two collections is not necessarily generalizable to all digital collections (or even all Jisc-provided collections), they were selected because they are both relatively mature in the sense of having been available to users for over a decade, were thought to be well-known in the research community, and also appeal to users from multiple disciplines.The report includes 10 main highlights from the research:1. The context of the use of digital resources is changing, but these changes are incremental and have a long development cycle prior to the realisation of impact.2. The usage of both Early English Books Online and House of Commons Parliamentary Papers has been increasing steadily over the past decade.3. While researchers at top universities are most likely to use EEBO and HCPP, less research-intensive HE institutions also benefit from both collections.4. Researchers rely heavily on specific digital collections that they return to regularly, which is resulting in incremental changes in scholarly behaviour.5. Resource use in the humanities is extremely diverse, and this makes providing access to needed resources and tools particularly challenging.6. The citation evidence that is available shows a growing literature that mentions using EEBO or HCPP, and these publications in turn are reasonably well-cited.7. The number and range of disciplines that refer to EEBO and HCPP is much more diverse than expected.8. Researchers are more concerned with the content and functionality of the digital collections than in who provides the access.9. The UK is unusual for providing national-level access across institutions through Jisc’s national purchasing.10. Shifts to humanities data science and data-driven research are of growing interest to scholars, although there is still plenty of room for growth in this focus on digital humanities, particularly in teaching.The report concludes by arguing that digital collections have become fundamental to modern scholarship.

Il s'agit d'un appel a communication afin de participer a une session. Les auteurs insistent ici sur l'importance des collections anciennes et de leur conservation. Elles peuvent ainsi contribuer au developpement de nouvelles etudes, soit en realisant de nouveaux travaux sur les objets de collection, soit en utilisant les travaux deja realises comme reference pour aller plus loin dans de nouvelles investigations.

The genesis of this article stems from the concern of the History of the Health Sciences Section of the Medical Library Association (MLA) over what we perceive to be erosion of an appreciation for and knowledge of history and medical humanities and the future of these historically based collections. This concern extends beyond university administrators to include the library profession itself. We are not alone in this concern. The American Association for the History of Medicine is similarly disquieted and has reacted recently to this unease by forming a committee to examine issues related to the future of medical history libraries [1]. Evidence to support the assertion that we have entered a period of professional amnesia can be found as close as our peer-reviewed journal itself, where there has been a steady retreat of historical articles since the 1970s, with the trend continuing to the present.† However, this is not to point fingers at editors. Editors cannot publish what they do not receive. Moreover, we believe the issue runs deeper and is rooted in professional amnesia over our own professional history, a profession that itself historically had included historical studies and historical collections management as an integral part of its interests and responsibilities. In this advocacy document, the authors will review the integral relationship between history and medical librarianship in the development of the profession, confirm the continuing relevance of this relationship as we continue to find new roles for medical librarians in the changing health curricula, and offer practical ways in which we can advocate for the history of the health sciences within our institutions and beyond. Starting with our own professional history, beyond our association's original founders such as Margaret Ridley Charlton and George Milbry Gould, the role of William Osler was key in making history and medical humanities part of the MLA's organizational charge. As historian Jennifer Connor has observed in her Guardians of Medical Knowledge: In general, where Gould—a self-consciously cultured man himself—had pushed scientific communications as the means to transform moribund collections into active workshops, medical leaders afterward reclaimed the notion of humanism in medicine [emphasis added] to breathe life into collections of classical books as well… . The objective of these later leaders was to use the association to elevate and cultivate the medical profession, in part through reading and celebrating their medical heritage. They were deeply influenced in this respect by the association's second president, William Osler. Key participants in the society formed an intricate network of the medical elite through their relationships with Osler, their connections to the Association of American Physicians, and their roles as directors of medical libraries. [2] Indeed, it was Osler who steered the newly formed association toward historical studies. The first periodical devoted to the history of medicine was also the official publication of the Association of Medical Librarians. The official journal of the association, The Medical Library and Historical Journal, begun in 1903, made the connection between medical libraries and history explicit. The early list of MLA officials reads like a who's who of American medical historians: Gould served on the board of the MLA and edited the Annals of Medical History (a journal established in 1917); later, Archibald Malloch, an MLA official, became the first editor of the Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences that was started in 1946; and other prominent MLA officials like Francis R. Packard, J. George Adami, Fielding H. Garrison, and Abraham Jacobi served in important positions in the history of medicine. Together, they helped create a culture of professionalism as well as scholarship in an emerging field that distinguished itself from other library specialties emerging contemporaneously from the work of Melvil Dewey, William Frederick Poole, and Justin Winsor. Along with this professionalism came a general elevation in the caliber of medical libraries from those who staffed them to the collection development resources that filled them. Thus it was from the very beginning that this organization of library professionals was intimately bound up with the history of medicine and health care and owes much of its success to the influence of medical humanities. And yet, as indicated in the introduction, the pages of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (now Journal of the Medical Library Association [JMLA]) show the steady shrinkage and virtual disappearance of this valuable and critical tool in our profession and along with it an alarming display of professional amnesia. This advocacy document is, therefore, a call for MLA to once again take the lead in recognizing the value and importance of history in the health care professions and of the historical collections so ably managed by specialists in this field. This call is more than a nostalgic plea: By doing so, MLA will advance the profession of health sciences librarians in the following ways: 1. It will move health sciences librarians into a leadership role in multidisciplinary fields to support not just medical center needs, but the curricular needs of humanities departments (e.g., history, sociology, education, etc.) in the institutions they serve. 2. It will enhance real and perceived proficiencies for librarians in the academy by emphasizing history as a legitimate specialty in our field (e.g., special collections management and promotion, application of appropriate methodologies to historical inquiry, and sound historical reference and consultation services). 3. It will assist health sciences librarians (with appropriate expertise and interests) in becoming true collaborators with teaching faculty. 4. It will restore a broader role for health sciences librarians by providing a focus beyond that of assisting clinicians to include direct curricular support for history and historical components in history, medical sociology, and other education programs. We assert that through our professional expertise and purpose as gatekeepers of knowledge, librarians of the history of health sciences are an integral component of the faculty, especially, and in some ways uniquely, well positioned to provide key interdisciplinary services in the sciences and humanities through preservation, access, consultation, instruction, and relevant programming.

Synthetic polymers, in the form of digital media, negatives, tapes and compact disks, are now an important component of modern archival collections. They consist of many different plastics with significantly different properties. These plastics, as well as "archivally safe" plastics used for framing and storage, are often unexpectedly vulnerable to contamination from trace residues of biocides once commonly used in libraries and museums. Many of them are also susceptible to volatile degradation products from the archival collections themselves. Some of these interactions will be discussed in the context of collections management, with emphasis on avoiding incompatible combinations, identifying when a plastic has become corrosive and the advantages and limitations of scavengers and barrier materials. ESARBICA Journal Vol.22 2003: 25-36