Journal Article: “Rarely Analyzed: The Relationship Between Digital and Physical Rare Books Collections”

The article linked below was recently published by Information Technology and Libraries.

Title

Rarely Analyzed: The Relationship Between Digital and Physical Rare Books Collections

Authors

Allison McCormack
University of Utah

Rachel Wittmann
University of Utah

Source

Information Technology and Libraries
Vol  41 No 2

DOI: 10.6017/ital.v41i2.13415

Abstract

The relationship between physical and digitized rare books can be complex and, at times, nebulous. When building a digital library, should showcasing a representative slice of the physical collection be the goal? Should stakeholders focus on preservation concerns, high-use items, or other concerns? To explore these conundrums, a special collections librarian and digital services librarian performed a comparative analysis of their library’s physical and digital rare books collections. After exporting MARC metadata for the rare books from their ILS, the librarians examined the place of publication, publication date, and broad subject range of the collection. They used this data to create a variety of visualizations with the open-source digital humanities tool Tableau Public

Next, the authors downloaded the rare books metadata from the digital library and created illuminating data visualizations. Were the geographic, temporal, and subject scope of the digital library similar to that of the physical rare books collection? If not, what accounts for the differences? The implications of these and other findings will be explored.

Direct to Full Text Article
13 pages; PDF.

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Data Files, Digital Collections, Interactive Tools, Libraries, News, Preservation