Unlocking the Door to Special Collections: Using the Web Combination

Introduction The World Wide Web provides a marvelously efficient mechanism for enhancing use of special collections in libraries. Production costs are minimal, the reach is global, and much of the audience is new to the world of rare books, manuscripts, archives, and historical photographs. In addition, a website is available, to those with the equipment, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, at no additional cost. Plus, it is infinitely and immediately updateable, upgradeable, and enhanceable. The web offers much that is useful to special collections; and, by virtue of their content, special collections offer much that is important to the web. Not in Kansas Anymore Like so many things in American life at the turn of the century, libraries and the special collections and archival departments within them have been mightily affected by the Internet and the World Wide Web. At some point in the future, it will all seem mundane and commonplace, but today's view of this ongoing transformation provides perspective on how far we have come and how much farther we have to go. Mainframes and MARC eliminated card catalogs and catalog cards from our professional lives; PCs and the Internet have nearly eliminated the standard inquiry letter with (or often, without) the stamped, self-addressed envelope; more powerful PCs, the World Wide Web, and always-on broadband connections are ushering in a world as yet only dimly realized. When we add ubiquitous wireless to this mix we will know "We're not in Kansas anymore." Accordingly, before we strap on the oft-predicted but never quite realized rocket belts, this might be an appropriate time to look back at the first faltering steps along this path and to review some of the choices made, the paths taken, the dead-ends encountered or avoided. It is also important to see that what we are doing now is not a break from the past but a continuation of it. There has been a revolution, but like most revolutions, much is retained and carried forward. Increasingly the network of computers that makes up what we think of as the internet is receding into the background as more and more of us are connected to it. It is, like all good infrastructures, becoming mostly invisible. As long as it works without a hitch, we do not have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. The World Wide Web, as one use of the Internet, is also going to recede into the background. New tools, new formats, and new media will change how the public accesses information and how libraries provide it. Been There, Done That The traditional means of library and archival outreach have included exhibits, special events, lectures, activities, publications, and audiovisual presentations. (1) In the last fifteen years or so, we've been increasingly exhorted to be proactive about getting the word out about our holdings (as if we weren't doing that before). Studies of resource allocators have demonstrated that what we hope people know about us is very different from what they do know about us; the Benton Foundation report (2) documents that disparity. While some say librarians and archivists don't do enough outreach, it is, for many, a matter of measuring priorities and responses. When only ten or twelve people show up at a program, lecture, or reception one wonders whether the time organizing it was well spent. Evaluation of the results of an event or activity is an important component frequently overlooked. Some years back I devised a scheme to test the usefulness of two big display cases on the outside wall of Special Collections facing the heavily used library reserve reading room. I would put up an exhibit or display using materials from our collections. I also included measurement tools. In one exhibit, placards suggested that interested viewers visit Special Collections for more information. In another, prizes were offered for answering simple questions about the exhibit. …