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Written by Erica Wine MSc

Cultural institutions in the UK are repositories of a wealth of historical material. The scholarly importance of such resources is at the basis of the numerous digitisation projects aimed at widening their access worldwide. The lack of national policies has left those institutions alone in engaging in dissemination activities and in raising awareness of their own online material.

Of particular interest to the author are the digital special collections hosted in the English Universities. The main activities of these institutions differ from others, such as museums, archives and public libraries, as they do not have the main institutional duties of preserving and the exploiting of their holdings. This article highlights related issues and suggests some of the possible measures to effectively promote and disseminate universities’ online digital special collections.

• Picture the scenario
  

You work for a University in England and you are a curator of a special collection that has been digitised. You would be in a very rare and lucky situation if the whole world knew about it, and if your institution was not just proud of its treasures, but fully supportive of any initiative to promote and exploit them. This article is for those who are not in such a position. Let's take a step back.

• What are special collections?
  

Special collections are those groups of archives or library materials (usually sharing a subject area) distinguished from the general stock for their physical form, content or depth of subject coverage.

• What has a university got to do with it?
  

At times, a special collection may be strongly linked to a particular University, which may become the natural home of the collection. Special collections therefore are donated or purchased by a home institution, which endeavours to preserve them. Once the institution has a special collection, its value in part depends on its accessibility: it is of little use unless the public knows about it. Digitisation is important as the conversion of the collections into digital format aids both preservation and access. Furthermore, digital special collections may constitute an important point of contact with wider cultural initiatives if appropriately exploited and promoted and may raise the profile of the home institution through the achievement of recognition in a regional, national or international context. Digitisation takes a great role in promoting cultural awareness and in creating new educational opportunities.

Furthermore, digital special collections may constitute an important point of contact with wider cultural initiatives if appropriately exploited and promoted and may raise the profile of the home institution through the achievement of recognition in a regional, national or international context.

• What's the problem?
  

Broadly, the home institutions do not realize all the positive aspects of having collections online, even when copyright is not a concern. This is because there are several issues involved:

• Collection issues - there is a lack of a common definition of what really constitutes a special collection (not topic-grouped up-to-date stock such as market reports, European documentation etc.). Several institutions extend the definition of digital collection to electronic journals, digital libraries and really anything that is in digital form and available online (photographs of recent events etc.).
  
  
• Promotional issues - generally promotional activities fall within the responsibilities of the curators, who are not expert in communication and marketing strategies.
  
  
• Institutional issues - indisputably, dissemination and promotion relies on the institution's organisational culture and on the attitudes of the curator. It would be a logical approach for an institution's marketing department to exploit online special collections for targeting national and international audiences. It is a fact that the majority of online digital special collections share the domain of their home institution; however the majority of universities lack a genuine interest in their own collections and fail to include them constantly in a wider agenda. Such a failure constitutes a great loss of opportunities to the institution's prestige. It also highlights both the disjointed reality of the English universities and their inability to fully exploit the funds made available for the digitisation of special collections.
  
  
• Staffing issues – although the curatorial duty of the majority of the collections is the task of information professionals, there is an overwhelming lack of staff dedicated solely to the online special collections. The need for successfully targeted promotional campaigns to ensure their most effective dissemination is even more apparent.
  

• So what to do next?
  

Let's see what curators could do to enhance promotion and awareness of their online digital collections. It is important to point out that home institutions present different scenarios, realities and financial backing.

* Although most collections were deemed to be appealing to international audiences, not many appear on worldwide online search tools (databases, search engines, subject gateways, etc).

** The overwhelming lack of adherence to the widest spectrum of initiatives at national and intentional level (e.g. databases and portals) is a missed opportunity. See appendix for a list of national and international initiatives.

*** For example, the failure to target children constitutes a loss of opportunities for the dissemination of the collections through reaching schools or parents. Understandably, such an aspect has financial and planning implications and could suffer a lack of interest or expertise. However, explorative and entertaining features for children or just cooperation with the other educational websites (e.g. BBC and Grid of Learning) could become part of an outreach programme for the universities.

For more information about digital collections, see any of the following recommended resources and collections:

• A2A [Access to Archive]
  
• AAD [Access to archival databases]
  
• AHDS [Art and Humanities Data Services]
  
• AHRC [Art and Humanities Research Council]
  
• Aim25
  
• AMARC
  
• ArchiveGrid
  
• Archives Hub
  
• Britain in print
  
• British Pathe Film Archive
  
• Cecilia
  
• Community archives
  
• Cornucopia
  
• DIAMM [Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music]
  
• EEBO [Early English Books Online]
  
• European Archive
  
• Google Library Project
  
• ICA [International Council on Archives]
  
• Intute
  
• MALVINE [Manuscripts and Letters via Integrated Network in Europe]
  
• MICHAEL
  
• National Archives
  
• UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] archives portal
  

The strategies suggested are just some of the ways that cultural institutions can intelligently 'spread the message' and increase visitor access to their collections. Without implementing these processes or procedures, it will be very difficult for institutions to promote or broaden the appeal of their special collections. It will also limit the accessibility of their collections to new audiences and the creation of further educational opportunities. Ultimately, this will impact the 'survivability' of their collections in the long term.

About the author:

Erica Wine works at Digital Capture Solutions, the digitisation service of the Library and Learning Resources at the Birmingham City University in Birmingham, UK. She conducted the research promotion of online digital special collections in the Higher Education Institutions in England as a partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Science.

Related links:

• 1997-2007: A Decade of Find, Use, Manage, Share
  
  
• Digital Repositories in UK universities and colleges
  
  
• What They Say and Do: Practical Tips for Harvesting Reliable User Feedback for Planning

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