Research Article
Fall 2021
The Steward of Book History in the Digital Age: The Struggles and Rewards of Collecting e-Books for Special Collections Institutions
Jessica Bigelow
Collecting and preserving e-books in special collections institutions poses challenges and rewards for working professionals in the field. Although scholars of book history have spent the last decade or so including e-books in their historical overviews, reviewing e-books’ connections to their physical past and speculating on their impact on the future of books, their importance in the overall timeline of book evolution has not yet made an impact on collecting guidelines. ...
Recently Published
Editor's Note • Fall 2021
Editor's Note
Richard Saunders
I think we have all had enough of COVID stress to be quite tired of the demands it enforces on our work and social spaces. I’ve lost acquaintances to it—no friends or colleagues yet, thankfully. Being isolated for the past year has provided some quiet time for reflection and for reevaluation. ...
Research Article • Fall 2021
Fostering Graduate Student Research: Launching a Speaker Series
Kara Flynn, Lori Birrell
The University of Arkansas Libraries’ Special Collections, in partnership with the Graduate School and International Education, initiated a graduate student speaker series in 2018. The series is a professional development opportunity for graduate students who have done research in Special Collections. ...
Research Article • Fall 2021
Privacy in Public Archives: Managing Personally Identifiable Information in Special Collections
Zachary G. Stein
Archivists aim to make research and manuscripts accessible to the public. However, accessibility becomes tricky when donors or institutions enforce limitations. Sometimes limitations need to be enforced, especially when dealing with sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII), unpublished works, and student records. ...
Research Article • Spring 2021
Silences in the LAMs: Digital Surrogacy in the Time of Pandemic, an Introduction
Beth Lander
In 2018, seven partners within the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL)—the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson University, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Pennsylvania Hospital, The Library Company, and the American Philosophical Society—received funding through the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Digitizing Hidden Collections program to digitize all extant records documenting early medical education in Philadelphia. This project, For the Health of the New Nation ...