The time and resources required to prepare archival collections for use by researchers is a source of constant frustration in archives and libraries. Almost always, aspirations and collections exceed limited resources. The last fifteen to twenty years have seen archivists and librarians putting great effort into increasing standardization and…

In 2020, UNLV Special Collections and Archives conducted an internal audit of collections, strategic plans, and programming in order to assess how well it is meeting strategic goals of being more inclusive and increasing diversity and representation. In a data-driven institution, how can assessment be used to advocate for resources focused on…

As the need for digital content increases almost daily, preserving this content for university libraries, especially in the least developed and developing nations, becomes a challenge, resulting in the loss of this data. Even though most of these libraries are automated and adopt one digital preservation strategy or the other, library users need…

Many libraries and archives have recently released statements about harmful material in their collections and the descriptions of these collections. However, these types of statements are not required for any professional accreditation or membership, nor are there specific guidelines to follow. This study collected and analyzed statements from…

This essay proposes a novel approach to developing shared educational resources for higher education. Building on characteristics of successful moves to open access in scholarly publishing, it scopes a network of discipline-based cross-institutional hubs for finding, sharing and reusing educational outputs. As well as creating repositories of…

Current literature outlines the importance of--and strategies for--collecting student life material in institutional archives but does not address the inclusion of this material within collecting statements. This study examines publicly available collecting statements from Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions' university archives,…

News aggregator databases offer different content and features, but there is little guidance on how these databases compare. This article compares the coverage scope, availability of 35 U.S. newspaper titles, and features of six news aggregators available to U.S. academic libraries: "Newspaper Source Plus" (EBSCO), "Factiva,"…

In recent years, the opportunities for academic libraries to engage as a partner in digital initiatives in academia have expanded significantly. The traditional focus on digitization, preservation, and dissemination of collections has developed and shifted considerably, bringing new strategies for adequately serving the changed academic needs, as…

This study examines how academic libraries in the UK responded to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 open access policy. Thirteen information professionals at twelve institutions across the UK took part in semi-structured interviews. Findings from the interviews reveal how libraries created and deployed new infrastructures, workflows,…

Instruction in special collections and archives spaces has evolved from the once ubiquitous show-and-tell sessions, but it remains reliant on the one-shot model where classes visit the reading room to work with primary source material in a standalone session. As Nicole Pagowsky points out, "One-shots are transactional; content is requested…

The digitization of library and archive collections over the last two decades has enabled efforts to reform history education through the integration of primary sources. Currently the Library of Congress provides one of the largest digital collections of its kind. The authors' project, with support from the Library, provides social studies…

The Re-membering Blackness Digital Archive at the University of Scranton shares the university's racial story as part of a campus-wide initiative devoted to reconciliation and collective memory. By bringing together archival records on Black history in a thematic digital collection, the project presents a corrective lens through which the…

This article seeks to understand the current state of the field of special collections library administration in the United States. Using a dataset gathered through publicly available information about special collections directors from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Independent Research Libraries Association (IRLA), and the Oberlin…

Considering the importance of subject retrieval for scientific visibility, and the need to guide authors in self-archiving their papers in institutional repositories of university libraries, this study observed the patterns and strategies used by authors while indexing for keyword assignment. The study examined four categories of analysis:…

Escape rooms are used in a myriad of ways by businesses, teachers, and public libraries. They can be a great way to encourage team building, learning, and simply having fun in a non-threatening environment. This case study presents an innovative approach to engaging students, faculty, and community by using and showcasing unique academic library…