Association of Research Libraries (ARL®)

Werner Gundersheimer, Director
Folger Shakespeare Library

[1] Six or seven years ago, I began a quiet campaign to alert the trustees of the Folger Library that their eminent collection of special collections was well on the way to becoming what I called "road kill on the information highway." Until that time, I had stood back and watched my colleagues in the independent research libraries invest large numbers of very scarce dollars in online cataloging, the attendant costs of retrospective conversion, and the cascading expenses of hardware and software purchases and upgrades. For quite a while, it had been clear to me that it was not in our institution's best interests to try to be a front-line player in this exhausting and expensive game. On the other hand, I recognized that a time would come when there would be a meeting point between the escalating expectations of our readers and the improving quality and declining costs of the inescapable technology.

The Folger's librarians and I had been keeping our heads well down in the sands blowing around this issue for a long time. Ostriches are not stupid, merely peculiar. Once in a while, we stole a peek at what was going on, and realized we weren't ready to play. But we also saw the rest of the flock moving towards an ever-receding horizon. The nice thing about being an ostrich is that once you decide to go someplace, you can move along at a good clip. That, I believe, is the main difference between the ostrich and the dodo. For us, the moment of convergence came in about 1994, when several tendencies became unmistakable: first, it became clear that our younger readers and research fellows were no longer accustomed to, let alone adept at using a card catalogue; second, we realized that the cost of buying, making, checking, and filing catalogue cards was escalating, while that of computer-based processing had plummeted; third, that as the large library software market was nearing saturation, software manufacturers were discovering a new niche in smaller, special collections institutions, and were competing for market share.

At that point, we lifted up our heads, shook off the sand, and started running. Some of the older birds in our aviary, looking at what seemed to be a mirage shimmering in the distance, realized that the journey would be too long and hard, and decided to step aside in favor of younger ones. The new generation, together with some holdovers, decided to move along together, in a collective and collaborative process, and began to plan for the trip. The goal was to introduce huge changes in the way the Folger worked while preserving its traditional culture of attentive reader services, great civility, and extraordinary care of the objects entrusted to us. The transition from paper to OPAC, and from old-fashioned rare books librarianship to integrated, state-of-the-art collections management has been rapid, and practically seamless. Staff and readers appear to be very happy with the new technologies, anticipate further change without apprehension, and express no nostalgia for the good old days.

So why are we worried? The answer is that in relation to technological change in the internal library environment, we're not. Or at least, we're not particularly worried about the kinds of things that would be on our minds if we were part of a larger research library. We sometimes become anxious about how we'll manage to pay for things we need to do, but that's universal. Places like the Folger, the Newberry, the Morgan, and the Huntington don't have alumni to turn to—our donor base isn't replenished annually by a new crop of real or potential loyalists. But we also don't have to answer to a central development office, or take our place in somebody else's list of priorities. Therefore, we're not agitated by all of the issues that your special collections people pose in their internal deliberations, for many of these are, by and large, pecking-order issues. That is to say, there is a special kind of double bind in the big research libraries that we in the IRLA community do not share. On the one hand, special collections staff in your institutions tend to feel out of the loop, marginalized in all sorts of ways. At the same time, they tend to be perceived by regular staff as especially privileged souls, living in elegant enclaves and largely freed from the pressures of day-to-day librarianship. To change these perceptions would be a worthy goal, but I think that in many institutions, that would also require changing some of the underlying realities. From a special collections perspective, I might put it this way: if my library were, by some quirk of fate, to be part of one of your libraries, I would indeed have some worries not entirely like my normal range of problems.

I've been in academic life now for forty years, and a big part of that life has been spent in special collections, here and abroad. I've worked in a few sumptuous places, where readers are pampered and nurtured; but also in places where you could only find a book by searching through hand-written catalogues compiled in the eighteenth century; places where the guy with the key wasn't going to be around for two or three days; places where you could look at only two or three items per day and if they didn't pan out you'd be out on the street at 9:30AM with the rest of the day at leisure. Aside from a few professorial prima donnas, people who use special collections aren't spoiled. They adapt well to unusual hours, quirky catalogs, sub-par light and heat, all sorts of security measures. For them, such collections provide unique opportunities for learning and discovery. But I realize that we who use, and who staff, these collections are a minority within a minority. To preserve and enhance such enterprises—to invest seriously in them—must seem to require, in the eyes of beleaguered university librarians, an act of faith rather than of rational policy.

I would argue against that view, because I am totally convinced that America's major research libraries, the great and the not-so-great, can only benefit—and benefit substantially—from a serious, ongoing investment in their special collections. I do not claim that the benefits would be apparent in the short term; but so far, most university managers have not had to adhere to the quarterly timelines of corporate America. We all know that the special enclaves of big university libraries have a unique sort of cachet. The trustees are in town, it's time they looked at the library after a few years of neglect, so toward the end of their day they get the tour of the new wing, a peek at the latest servers with the I.T. team, the recently-named student computer facility; then it's time for the reception. Off they go to Special Collections, where cocktails and hors d'oeuvres are laid out at one end. At the other, a few nervous curators huddle to show off some of the high spots, and make sure the drinks are parked at a safe distance from the treasures. As the conviviality grows, the Provost or maybe even the President stops by, brief words are said, the Director of Libraries or even the Head of Special Collections may get to make a cameo presentation, and then the whole gang is off to the dinner, where the trustees congratulate one another on their library's unique blend of high technology and bibliophilic riches. "I wish I had the time…" one of them says ruefully, the phrase trailing off, and heads nod around the table.

This tableau can be found all over the land. It signifies the Special Collection as an emblem—or, to revert to the outmoded seventies' term, a signifier—of a library's (and a university's) distinction; but it is also, in its way, dismissive. It is the Special Collection as sky box. The playing field, where the real action is, is elsewhere. That assumption spreads very quickly in an institution, and can even be unconsciously appropriated into the self-perception of librarians. Consider for example the terms in which funding for special collections are presented in some of the working papers for this meeting: "How does one justify the continued growth of a rare books collection when enough money is not available for critical science periodicals?" Ah yes, the science journal is critical; the missing letter from Roethke to Lowell, or that nice illuminated Book of Hours, or the journal of an early Swedish settler, maybe they should wait. A more neutral way of putting the same question might be "What can we do to limit our costs for scientific journals, with their three-to-six month shelf life and their extortionate profits, so that we can continue to build that part of our holdings that will serve as a resource for generations to come?" Why should anyone have to justify collection building? That is a core purpose of any library that deserves the name. Special collections are easy to patronize, easy to marginalize, and ARL deserves great credit for bringing them to the forefront at this meeting.

Over the past few years, the research library community has become acutely aware of some of the implications of the information revolution which were quite unclear at the beginning. Perhaps the most profound of these implications is the democratization of access to printed materials through digitization and the downloading potential of the Internet. That process has in theory, and increasingly in practice, leveled the playing field of research libraries. In the interesting report entitled Scholarship, Instruction, and Libraries at the Turn of the Century, published by the Council on Library and Information Resources this past January, the five reporting task forces noted that "The trend towards collections which resemble one another to the detriment of amassing collections of unique material, manuscripts, archives, and rare books, was recognized as a threat to the continued success and growth of scholarship and teaching in North America."[2] The report calls for a reduction in duplication, or "overlap." This argument has its analogue in policy debates that rage from time to time in the hospital world, as to how many scanners or trauma centers are needed within a given region, and it is an equally important issue for librarians to resolve. What we are seeing, and what I believe we should plan assiduously to avoid, is the creation of what might be termed "MacLibraries," institutions so naturally inclined to replicate one another's holdings that in the end there remains no significant difference between them.

Every library director wants her library to be great, and preferably better than most if not all of the others. But that is both a practical and logical impossibility. It moves from impossibility to nightmare when one adds in the demands and purported "needs" of faculty. In my experience, which includes seventeen years as a professor and fifteen years of directing a research library, I have often seen both how helpful and how narrowly self-serving the suggestions and/or demands of my faculty colleagues can be. (I do not necessarily exclude myself from the charge of misdirected acquisitiveness.) My conclusion is that while faculty interests and ideas should always be considered, a knowledgeable librarian will almost invariably be there first, and will have made a more judicious selection. Moreover, while I've known dozens of professors who moved to new places for reasons relating to salary, teaching load, leave policy, availability of graduate students, research support, quality of life, partner's employment, and other factors, I've known only one who left her university because of dissatisfaction with the library's collecting policy. That, I hasten to add, was not an ARL library.[3]

But that doesn't mean that the issue doesn't affect the quality of life in important ways for students and faculty. For humanists the presence of a vigorous special collections program may provide the same kind of attractions which lab space may hold out for scientists. It can certainly make a difference in recruiting the best available faculty and graduate students. The existence of, and continuing investment in, special collections says, in effect, "This institution cares about the discrete, the unique object of study. It honors and seeks to support basic research in fields other than the laboratory sciences. We have identified certain subjects in which we intend to amass deep resources for study. We understand, and we value, the kinds of intellectual effort that students and faculty may commit to investigating these materials. For our part, we are committed to preserving them, adding to them from time to time as opportunities arise, and making them available to those who wish to consult them." If a library can take that position, and mean it, it can and will build a worthwhile special collections program, one that enhances the quality of the entire institution.

Of course, special collections present special problems. Let us consider a few of them. The first is quality control. This difficulty often presents itself when items or entire collections are offered by way of gift or bequest. It is very easy to accumulate a great deal of unique but apparently trivial material in this way, and thus to incur curatorial and other obligations and costs which can encumber an institution well into the future. This hazard can be easily avoided by having in place an accessions policy with explicit criteria, and then sticking to it. Proposed gifts should also be scrutinized for conditions. Restrictions on use, limits on disposal, and requirements that gifts be exhibited or maintained in certain ways should almost never be accepted. A good gift, generally speaking, is an unrestricted gift; but all gifts should undergo a rigorous costs-benefits analysis.

The second problem is that of adequate staffing. That means, in the first instance, a special collections director must be not just a well-trained librarian and an effective administrator, but must also be reasonably adept at donor relations, able to articulate the mission of the collection, and attract people to its support. University development offices can become rather territorial in these matters. They need to be taught—probably by directors of library systems—that a prospective donor who finds himself drawn to an acquisitions endowment or a major manuscript purchase is not likely to underwrite the new chair in gender theory or applied ergonomics, let alone the electronic scoreboard or the next coat of astroturf.

A third special problem of special collections is conservation. You can read the recent reports of all sorts of library-related committees and task forces without finding a word about the massive task of saving deteriorating rare books and manuscripts. I am not speaking here about preservation, a laudable and needed enterprise to which much (but probably not enough) time, money, and effort is devoted. My concern is what librarians call "item level conservation," an activity which is somewhat dismissively characterized in a recent report as "often based on the model used by museums."[4] But, whether we like it or not, libraries with special collections are, in fact, museums. The unquestionable need to find ways and means of preserving entire classes of material—embrittled paper, film, audio material—in no way absolves us of responsibility for conserving the unique object, and it is distressing that the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction in recent years. Think about the ethics, for want of a better word, of going out and buying new old material if you're not doing all you can to maintain the old old material you've already got. Most special collections in American research libraries enjoy acceptable temperature and humidity controls, but very few institutions have a qualified conservator or a functioning conservation laboratory. Yet, when it comes to rare material, it is far easier and cheaper to conserve an existing collection than to build a new one.

A fourth problem, one that will be felt more keenly as time goes by, is the diminishing supply of appropriate materials to collect. Here, technology is the enemy, for we are fast moving into a time when there will be no more literary manuscripts, no drafts of poems, no letters between author and agent, editor, lover, friend or spouse; no private musings by diplomats; no scrawled journals chronicling voyages, or diseases, or transformative experiences of music or painting. Where have all the flowers gone? Into e-mail, every one. This is sad, but inevitable. It poses a problem for the collective memory of our species, but also for the future of collecting. Still, there may be as much as a half-century of fruitful collecting ahead, and alert librarians will as always be competing with the savvy collectors who are doing it. The wise institution will support this enterprise, and managers will think long and hard about the goals and purposes of their special collections. They will also take care to identify and set aside materials in their general collections which have become, or show the potential to become, more than normally worth preserving. We can all tell tales about such works wafting away, in whole or in part, from the open stacks which over the years have provided such magnificent hospitality to friends and foes of scholarship alike.

Now, you can have the best-laid accessions plan in the world but this kind of collection-building is by its very nature somewhat unsystematic, and may therefore seem frustrating or even dilettantish in comparison to the kind of methodical effort that can be applied to the accumulation of modern reference materials. Special collection building is of necessity opportunistic and sporadic. Dealers and donors suggest items or whole collections, bequests appear to be rejected or accepted, curators scan catalogues, review faxes, prowl the aisles at book fairs. Once in a while you find something. But that something, which may be of very slender monetary value, may end up turning the lights on for a student doing an undergraduate thesis, or it may provide the keystone for an exhibition.

Let me give you a very modest example. A few weeks ago, I received a package in the mail, containing a number of documents and books that belonged to a man named Alfred Hiller. As a child, I had met this man a few times, and admired him very much. Our meetings took place because when he was already in his fifties, he married my aunt Lotte, who was also middle-aged. They lived in San Francisco, and we were in Philadelphia, so we saw each other only on a few special occasions. After a few years, Lotte died, and some time thereafter, Alfred remarried. The package came from his stepson from that marriage, an eminent professor at Brown University, who knew of my early relationship with Alfred.

The box contained a number of things which might be of some interest to an historian working on twentieth-century German history up through the 1930s—a birth-certificate showing that Alfred was born in Mussbach in April 28, 1895; his military passes from the First World War; a bound copy of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Würzburg; a family prayer book and other volumes; a certificate dated 1935 and issued in the name of the Führer, accompanying a medal for Alfred's service in the war; and, from the following year, his Certificate of Registration as an alien in Britain, indicating the dates of his arrival and eventual departure for the United States. Most of this is the stuff of a family archive, or perhaps a museum or library documenting the migrations of the Nazi era. But there are one or two items of broader interest. One is a pamphlet, the size and shape of a passport, bound in plain black cloth. I opened it with no particular sense of anticipation, and found it to be a German and Hebrew prayer book published in 1914 for the use of Jewish soldiers in the field.[5] Alfred, who according to his military documents had been at Metz and Verdun, had carried this little volume through the war, and then kept it carefully through the year of the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, and later life as a refugee and, eventually, a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Given its ephemeral and situational character, I think it is safe to say that this is a fairly scarce book, especially in what a bookseller might call "near mint" condition. From the point of view of preservation, one could see an argument for reproducing it in a different format, for the pages show signs of acidic discoloration and early-stage embrittlement. But the text itself is commonplace—standard prayers for daily life, the Sabbath, and the festivals, and it is hard to imagine a research enterprise that would be damaged by not having this particular version of those texts. It is the thing itself that is of interest, for it represents and objectifies one of our century's great ironies—the decorated Jewish veteran of the German army, who survived the trenches and was subsequently lucky to escape with his life from the nation for which he put that life on the line. No microfilm or fiche or card, no digitized version, nor online facsimile can convey the power of the authentic object. And increasingly, in a world of virtual reality, our students and we ourselves will need that contact with what is left to us of irreducible authenticity.

I used to take my students over to the Rare Book room in Van Pelt Library at Penn to show them a few early modern sources, and give them a sense of what historians actually see and use. It made a big impression on them to be able to hold in their hands a letter by a fifteenth-century Florentine notary recording some minor real estate transaction, or a printed letter of indulgence issued to a German Catholic—probably soon to be a Protestant—on the eve of the Reformation. There is no way this experience can be genuinely replicated in virtual reality. When I take visitors to the rare book vaults at the Folger, I generally try to show them a printed Cicero that belonged to King Henry VIII. When I open it to the page where the young prince has scrawled "This boke is mine. Prince Henry," people tend to be moved. They report the same kind of reaction when we let them hold in their hands the charming little prayer book which one of his unfortunate wives, Anne of Cleves, gave to the clearly unappreciative King Henry VIII. This is something people do not forget. They will not derive that experience from the online version, if and when it appears.

Most people in the world of special collections librarianship are swept up in the dizzying whirl of technological change. They have seen the benefits of the great online bibliographical databases, the efficiencies attainable through OPACS, the utility of the MARC standards, the productive interactions available through the web, and all the rest of it. Increasingly, too, they are attracted to—perhaps I should say seduced by—the potential of digitization. The attractions are obvious. Electronic surrogates paradoxically help us save fragile objects while at the same time enabling practically everyone to make use of them. For the first time, we can be protective without appearing to be possessive. Time and space disappear as limiting factors in the use of collections. Grants can be had for attractive digitization projects. The means for transporting the images are in place.

None of the problems we face here—copyright, unauthorized and fair use, watermarking, controlling print options, permissions and fees, lack of standards, path of migration, issues of permanence—will turn out to be insurmountable. The attractions of the medium are too great for that. So the question becomes one of using these tools effectively as educators, now that it seems that we can have it all. What happens when there aren't just one or two physical doors into a library, but thousands or millions of virtual doors as well? The research library must surely face the challenge of deciding what to do about the public, defined as potential users outside the relatively private circle of enrolled students and employed faculty and staff. Will we recognize a mission to provide access to the larger community and if so, under what conditions, and with what limits? This is a large policy issue, and I have no firm views about it, except to notice it looming on the horizon.

But I would like to leave you with some thoughts about how great libraries might use their resources more effectively to support students in their research. Here, the potential of electronic surrogates seems vast. Faculty leadership (and collaboration with librarians) is critical in introducing electronic surrogates to students not as the end source but as first exposure. That is to stay, we should take full advantage of the opportunity to provide browsing without handling as the initial stage of a research effort. The new media also provide efficient means for introducing students to different formats—maps, manuscripts, painting and sculpture, letters, diaries, account books (although the 15-inch screen with its multiple pixels fails to convey the essential differences between these classes of objects). Faculty as well as students may benefit from bringing librarians more directly into the curriculum, for few, especially among the older, professors are as current in their knowledge of technological developments as the information professionals on library staffs. Libraries can also promote collaboration between scholars and student assistants, by providing electronic access to the data the faculty members is using. In all these ways, the printed or manuscript page can migrate to remote places in new formats. But we must never lose sight of the investment needed in conserving that page, or the desirability of fostering a reverse migration, that of the student eventually finding her way from the virtual to the actual Reading Room. If and when something better than that turns up, I trust someone will let me know.

Endnotes

[1] Keynote address presented to the semi-annual meeting of the American Research Libraries Association in Kansas City, MO on May 13, 1999. Thanks to Karen Gundersheimer, Richard Kuhta, Anne E. B. Coldiron, and Deborah Jakubs for helpful comments.

[2] See especially pp. 2-3, 14-16, and 28-29.

[3] In the discussion following this talk, a librarian reported another case, this time from an ARL institution. The phenomenon still appears rare, although it may be more common, and less frequently reported, than I had assumed.

[4] Abby Smith, The Future of the Past: Preservation in American Research Libraries, published by the Council on Library and Information Resources, Commission on Preservation and Access, April 1999, p.3.

[5] Feldgebetbuch für die jüdischen Mannschaften des heeres (Berlin, 1914).

Copyright © 1999 by Werner Gundersheimer