Using Digital Methods to Enhance Their Research And
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
commercial companies, businesses, charities and religious institutions. The University of Manches- Exploiting special ter was founded as Owens College in 1851. The printed book collection of Richard Copley Christie collections: using (with its strength in Italian Renaissance books) together with that of Edward Freeman (rich in digital methods material on European medieval history) formed the main foundation for the college library in the to enhance 1890s. Strengths in special holdings relating to medicine and science reflect the research orienta- their research tion of the university over the twentieth century. Similarly, the special collections of the former and learning UMIST library focus on the history of science and potential technology. RESO ur CE DISCOVE R Y Stella Butler One of our core functions is to provide access to Deputy University Librarian, these resources for as many researchers as we pos- John Rylands University Library, The sibly can. First of all, and most basically, we need University of Manchester to tell our potential readers what we have that is Tel: 0161 275 3751 available to them. Increasingly our readers regard E-mail: [email protected] the internet rather than the physical library as the source of all collection descriptions. If a record In this article I review how the expanding digital describing a book, manuscript or archive is not environment is impacting on special collections easily found, preferably through a Google search, within academic libraries by exploring some then for many readers that resource simply does examples of digital projects within the John not exist. Rylands University Library of the University of Manchester (JRUL) and also elsewhere. I will In the 1990s, we benefited enormously from fund- consider very briefly what the future might hold ing made available through the Higher Education for special collections as technology continues to Funding Council for England for retrospective open up opportunities and challenges for collec- conversion of card catalogues, and as a result tion management and access. most of our printed books have electronic records that can be searched through the JRUL web-based THE JRUL SPECIA L CO ll EC T IONS catalogue or through COPAC. However, we still have collections of material for which the The special collections of the JRUL provide rich principal finding aid is the card catalogue. The resources for researchers in the humanities.1 They largest collection in this category is our collection originate from three foundation libraries: the John of medical printed books dated between 1800 Rylands Library, Deansgate; the Library of Owens and 1950. The origin of this collection lies with College, later the Victoria University of Manches- the Manchester Medical Society, founded in 1834. ter; and the Joule Library at UMIST (University of This collection contains many rare and important Manchester Institute of Science and Technology). items, including first editions of the works of The John Rylands Library was founded in the Xavier Bichat, Claude Bernard and others. The col- 1890s by Mrs Enriqueta Rylands, as a memorial lection is particularly rich in continental editions to her husband, John, one of the most successful and features an impressive range of titles in the cotton entrepreneurs of the mid-nineteenth cen- German language. Many would regard it as the tury. She purchased the printed book collection of best collection of printed material for the history the 2nd Earl Spencer and the collection of manu- of medicine between Oxford and Edinburgh. It is scripts assembled by the 25th and 26th Earls of currently housed in a closed-access store and use Crawford and Balcarres as core collections for the is sadly very low. I suspect many researchers are library. She herself added many further fine books simply not aware of its existence. and manuscripts. In the 1920s, the library first acquired archive collections in the form of family We also have a large collection of printed material muniment collections. The library now holds the associated with the history of Methodism, which archives of numerous organisations including is also not described by a comprehensive elec- SCONUL Focus 45 2009 81 tronic catalogue and is thus also very difficult to there is no electronic finding aid. Collection-level use. This collection was deposited in the library descriptions are publicised and for archives they in 1977 and comprises periodicals, books and form an important component of resource-dis- pamphlets, including material arguing against the covery for our readers. It could be argued that a ideas of John and Charles Wesley and other early collection-level description with a good box list is reformers. It contains primary source material for sufficient. However, archivists assure me that in historians of Protestant Nonconformity and is also an ideal world what researchers want is a detailed heavily used by family historians searching for catalogue as well, so that they have both the big their Methodist ancestry. picture provided by the collection description and the details of each item. I could go on with lists of other equally signifi- cant collections. And I am sure we are not alone As libraries are forced to consider ways of adding in having cataloguing backlogs. It is difficult to value to resource discovery there is increasing develop proposals to address these problems focus on finding ways of uncovering the links as it has become increasingly difficult to secure between collections, and between individual funding for projects that focus entirely on either items within collections, in order to encourage retrospective conversion of card catalogues or new research questions to be posed and, indeed, book-in-hand cataloguing. Programmes of exter- answered. The database of Italian academies nal funding tend to take a dim view of ‘simple’ at the British Library provides an outstanding electronic cataloguing programmes and expect example of this type of work.5 Professor Jane applicants to devise ways of adding value to the Everson of the Italian studies department at Royal research material – as if the intrinsic historical Holloway, University of London, and Denis Reidy value is not enough for the academic community. at the British Library have together developed a The consequence is that current externally levered database of information associated with the Ital- investment in the most basic of resource-discovery ian academies, 1530–1650, incorporating records tools, the electronic catalogue record, is very low harvested from the British Library catalogue. The indeed. As a result, in a tight internal financial database is searched independently of the main environment, collections that have enormous catalogue. Searches result in information about research potential are simply hidden from readers. people, networks and publications as well as catalogue records associated with books, manu- We do promote our resources at collection level scripts and archives in the British Library collec- also and there are many collection-level descrip- tions. Research that was done in the preparation tions on the web-site.2 Could cataloguing for of the database has been used to enhance the book printed books at this level provide a more general records, with further details associated with each solution to the lack of investment in item-level particular academy. This approach is ideal for a descriptions? The problem with printed books set of loosely linked individuals and institutions in a closed-access library comes, however, when but it could also be applied to research themes the readers arrive wanting to know exactly what and provides a transferable method of creating items are in the collection so that they can decide pathways through databases. For example, it what to order. We cannot allow readers to browse could work for the Dissenting academies estab- the shelves and so collection-level descriptions lished from the mid-eighteenth century in Eng- are really inadequate for printed-book resource- land, which provided such an important example discovery. for the modernization of higher education later in the nineteenth century. The ‘Access to Archives’ project3 and the higher education archives hub4 are playing a significant DIGI TA L S urr OGA T ES role in making archive and manuscript collections better known and better used, by disseminating Resources such as ‘Early English Books On-line’ electronic archive catalogues. We are grateful to and ‘Eighteenth Century Collections On-line’ the Wellcome Fund for Resources in Medical His- have provided researchers with digital surro- tory for enabling us to create a number of detailed gates of vast numbers of printed material from catalogues for archival material relating to the his- 1473 onwards. Is there anything more for special tory of medicine. And indeed we are fortunate in collections librarians to do, therefore, in terms of employing archivists within our permanent staff digitisation of print resources? Of course: copies who spend a large proportion of their time cata- of books printed before 1701 should be treated as loguing. However, as with printed books, there is unique in bibliographical terms. And, generally also a significant number of collections for which speaking, the earlier the printing the more indi- 82 SCONUL Focus 45 2009 vidual each copy becomes. An enormous amount However, Darwin and Gutenberg are histori- of information lies in the differences between cal giants, central to the canon, and as such they copies. It therefore follows that many surrogates are exceptions deserving comprehensive treat- of copies of significant titles could provide a ment when it comes to digitisation. There are of digitally convenient way to compare and collate course others in this category, and at JRUL we can and so extract that research information. There identify collections for which the comprehensive can be no more significant title than the Bible approach is the only way to yield the true research printed by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz in 1455, potential of a collection.