If We Build It, Will They Come? Strategies for Teaching and Research with Digital Special Collections

Abstract

Digitization and electronic communications are making manuscript and other special collections more available to more people than ever before. Libraries, special collections, and archives now routinely digitize materials for user access, for Web-based exhibits, and, increasingly, for preservation purposes. Although these activities have seemed revolutionary—by providing increased exposure to collections, making collections available to a much wider variety of users than ever before, and revealing hidden treasures—we are participating in a transformation that has only just begun. Most of the digitization and access activities that we engage in still parallel our activities in the physical domain fairly closely.