An objective of ARL’s Research, Teaching, and Learning Steering Committee is "Building and supporting collaborative integration and enduring access to comprehensive research collections and resources in all formats that advance research, teaching, and learning."
Within this broad context the steering committee set a strategic priority of addressing the changing nature of collections, collection management, and collection use. Potentially, this might embrace many areas of inquiry for ARL but, in the view of the steering committee, none so pressing as addressing issues associated with the collection, surfacing, and leveraging of special collections.
To advise on pursuit of this priority, the Research, Teaching, and Learning Steering Committee established a Working Group on Special Collections in 2007.