Special collections libraries collect and preserve materials of intellectual and cultural heritage, providing access to unique research resources. As their holdings continue to expand, special collections in research libraries confront increased space pressures. Off-site storage facilities, used frequently by research libraries for general…

This paper describes an investigation into whether institutional repositories at member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) provide publicly available metadata documentation via the repositories' websites. The study compares the results of a September 2017 survey with findings from a review of ARL institutional repository…

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…

It has become widely recognised across the academic and research libraries sector that special collections and archives play a key role in differentiating each institution from its peers. In recognition of this, Research Libraries UK (RLUK) established the workstrand "Unique and Distinctive Collections" (UDC) in support of its strategic…

This report presents statistics on how Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries spend money on electronic resources. This report indicates that 109 ARL libraries purchased 32,329,187 electronic books. In 2007-2008, there was a median of 28,319 acquisitions of electronic books by ARL libraries (this includes one institution that…

Traditionally, archivists have been involved mainly in the intellectual preservation of library materials and the selection, appraisal, processing, and cataloging of library collections. Due to the relatively short (approximately 50 years) stability of the paper commonly used for printed and written documents since the mid-nineteenth century, the…

This project is the first systematic study of the organizational structure, communications patterns, and archival records of industrial physicists in the U.S., and it provides general guidelines for understanding and documenting their work. The study confirms that the organization and management of industrial R&D is volatile, changing in response…