Special Collections and Liaison Librarian Partnerships
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Collaborating for Impact SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND LIAISON LIBRARIAN PARTNERSHIPS edited by Kristen Totleben Lori Birrell Association of College and Research Libraries A division of the American Library Association Chicago, Illinois 2016 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri- can National Standard for Information Sciences–Permanence of Paper for Print- ed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Totleben, Kristen, editor. | Birrell, Lori, editor. Title: Collaborating for impact : special collections and liaison librarian partnerships / edited by Kristen Totleben and Lori Birrell. Description: Chicago : Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, 2016. Identifiers: LCCN 2016037711| ISBN 9780838988831 (paperback) | ISBN 9780838988848 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Academic libraries--Relations with faculty and curriculum. | Academic librarians--Professional relationships. | Libraries--Special collections. | Academic libraries--Relations with faculty and curriculum--United States--Case studies. | Academic librarians--Professional relationships--United States--Case studies. Classification: LCC Z675.U5 C64165 2016 | DDC 027.7--dc23 LC record avail- able at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037711 Copyright ©2016 by the Association of College and Research Libraries. All rights reserved except those which may be granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. Printed in the United States of America. 20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1 Table of Contents v ���������Foreword Anne R. Kenney ix �������Introduction Kristen Totleben and Lori Birrell PART 1. RESEARCH CHAPTERS 1 ��������Chapter 1� Special Collections and Liaison Librarian Partnerships: A Review of the Literature Sarah M. Horowitz 17 ������ Chapter 2� Framing Collaboration: Archives, IRs, and General Collections Amy Cooper Cary, Michelle Sweetser, Scott Mandernack, and Tara Baillargeon 45 ������Chapter 3� Object-Based Pedagogy: New Opportunities for Collaboration in the Humanities Nora Dimmock PART 2. CASE STUDIES Collection Stewardship 61 ������Chapter 4� Science Fiction at Georgia Tech: Linking STEM, Humanities, and Archives Sherri Brown and Jody Thompson 79 ������Chapter 5� Artists’ Books: A Collaborative Approach to Collection Development Melanie Emerson 91 ������Chapter 6� Collaborative Collection Development and Community Outreach: Responding to Faculty Research Lynn Eaton and Brian Flota iii IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Projects, Research, and Exhibitions 101 �����Chapter 7� Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E.: Breaking Ground in Collaborative Pop Culture Curation Anna Culbertson and Pamela Jackson 113 ����Chapter 8� Meaningful Alliances: Managing a Collaborative Exhibit about World War I Jill Baron and Morgan Swan 123 ����Chapter 9� Collaboration in Translation: Revitalizing and Reconnecting With a Unique Foreign Language Collection Katie Gibson, Carly Sentieri, and William Modrow 135 ����Chapter 10� Better Together: Embedding a Liaison Librarian in a Special Collection Laurie Scrivener and Jacquelyn Slater Reese 147 �����Chapter 11� Expanding Our Reach: Collaborating to Lead a Volunteer Docent Team Rebekah Bedard Instruction 163 ����Chapter 12� Developing a Primary Source Lab Series: A Collaboration between Special Collections and Subject Collections Librarians Adam Rosenkranz, Gale Burrow, and Lisa Crane 187 ����Chapter 13� From Papyri to Penguin Books: A Collaborative Approach to Teaching the Transmission of Texts through Time Alison Clemens, Elizabeth Frengel, and Colin McCaffrey 203 ����Chapter 14� AIDS Education Posters Translation Project: Special Collections in Language Learning Curriculum Lori Birrell and Kristen Totleben 221 ����Chapter 15� OkstateShakespeare: Bringing Special Collections and Digital Humanities into the Undergraduate Classroom Andrew Wadoski, David D. Oberhelman, and Sarah Coates 237 ����Chapter 16� Closing the Loop: Creating Deliverables That Add Value Prudence Doherty and Daniel DeSanto 263 ����About the Authors Foreword* Anne R. Kenney Carl A. Kroch University Librarian Cornell University THIS USEFUL COMPENDIUM OFFERS inspiration and rele- vant case studies on how staff in special collections and liaison librarians can impact research, teaching, and learning by working collaboratively. Although the walls—physical and psychological—that divide special collections and the rest of the library system are more commonplace than not, there are forces underway that are leading to greater synergy: • The dominance of e-resources for general collections shifts the focus on physical collections more towards special collections. Journal literature has gone almost totally electronic and e-books are making some headway too. As a consequence, general stack collections are undergoing deselection or transfer to offsite and shared storage fa- cilities. Special collections assume a greater role in defining the local campus collection. • The growing importance of digital scholarship—content, tools, techniques—requires greater digital access to special collections materials. More primary source databases are being made available as licensed resources and there is a concomitant interest in digitizing local holdings as well. Digital scholarship helps mainstream special collections holdings. • Libraries continue to expand their support for teaching information literacy. The definition of requisite twenty-first-century information skills continues to broaden towards technology competencies but also towards critical thinking and the importance of primary source research. * This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, CC BY (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) v VI FOREWORD • Universities are placing greater emphasis on research at the under- graduate level. The library as lab for arts and humanities necessarily focuses attention on special collections materials. • Library outreach beyond arts and humanities has led to reimagining the role of special collections materials to support the sciences and social sciences. Collections that span disciplinary boundaries are seeing greater emphasis, such as those focusing on the history of science, human sexuality, pop culture, and science fiction. • The rise of liaison programs has led to formalized personal links at the department/discipline level. Support for research and teaching extends to special collections materials. • Increasing specialization needs (e.g., in IT, preservation, intellectual property and contractual rights, linked data, storage, digital foren- sics, and social media) requires expertise outside special collections, leading to greater collaboration. Matrix management approaches that bring together individuals across traditional vertical administra- tive lines can accelerate this trend. Even as these forces shift special collections more to the center of library life, there remain countervailing forces that maintain a divide: • By emphasizing differences and distinctive needs, the commonalities that bind special collections and other areas of the library tend to be minimized. • Distinct hours, access policies, technical processing, resource dis- covery approaches, and physical locations represent exceptions that require workarounds from mainstreamed operations. • “Special” can convey a sense of superiority giving rise to mispercep- tions, distrust, rivalry, and jealousy. As one case study noted “The invisible wall created by library deans, however unintentional, when placing their special collections units on development pedestals are detrimental to departmental relations and, therefore, library services and operations that are holistic.” (See Chapter 7.) • Different administrative reporting structures can exacerbate rather than minimize organizational divides. Senior leadership must signal the importance of working closely together. • Emphasis on the physicality of special collections objects is increas- ingly contrasted with general collections as they become disembod- ied digital objects more valued for their informational content and ease of use rather than their materiality. • The rise of liaison programs can lead to turf wars over areas of re- sponsibility and the primacy of contacts with faculty. This volume offers examples of ways to keep the momentum going. It be- gins with three overarching chapters that explore collaboration between liai- Foreword vii son and special collections librarians, including a thorough literature review; a proposed framework for acquiring general and special collections that doc- ument the history of the academy and remain responsive to campus curric- ular needs; and a tutorial on object-based pedagogy that can underpin such arrangements. The thirteen case studies that follow provide concrete examples of how to move the needle towards sustainable efforts and away from one-off examples. Among traditional markers of synergy mentioned are the development of LibGuides that reference both general and special materials, the creation of ex- hibition programs across the library that complement special collections exhi- bitions at Dartmouth, and the co-sponsoring of events, such as celebrations of anniversaries. Formalized arrangements are also popping up that can lead to deeper, more consistent partnerships in collection building, instruction, and community outreach. In the volume, several examples of team teaching, where an instruction librarian and a special collections curator join forces to enhance twenty-first-century