Are you struggling with increasing numbers of users, demand for digital, crumbling collections, unsuitable storage space, intellectual property conundrums, born-digital collections, lack of skills, pressure of public sector cuts and recession ...? You are not alone! Two essential new reports reveal the challenges faced by UK special collections and archives and give us the evidence … Continue reading Too Many Collections, So Little Time?
Category: Preservation
From Ewww to Wow!: funding preservation work
Out of all the things special collections do, I believe the easiest one to raise funds for is preservation (compared to other areas, no fundraising is easy these days!). It is something that naturally resonates with the public and is popular with many funders - and even small sums of money can make a noticeable … Continue reading From Ewww to Wow!: funding preservation work
Modernising Copyright: the White Paper is published
Important and good news for UK special collections services and their users. The UK government has just published the final part of its response to consultations following the Hargreaves review of intellectual property: Modernising copyright: a modern, robust and flexible framework. While not addressing underlying problems of copyright, the changes outlined allow a wider range … Continue reading Modernising Copyright: the White Paper is published
Care for Collections – Online
Here's a nice Christmas present from the British Library's Preservation Advisory Centre and my Research Libraries UK colleagues: a new online resource introducing collections care. I haven't been through it yet in detail but it looks promising. I've found the BLPAC's leaflets incredibly useful over the years (as I mention in the Handbook) and it's … Continue reading Care for Collections – Online
Conserving Photos with the Chantry Library
The Institute of Conservation's Chantry Library created two splendid bibliographies on Conservation of Photographs and of Japanese prints, selected and annotated by experts. The bibliographies are freely available online and the resources can be accessed via the Chantry Library. Further titles are promised!
The Special Collections Handbook 