Library Board of Trustees Agenda and Packet 2011 07 14

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PERSPECTIVES partnership with an established academic library that has a significant digitization project already in operation. That institution could act as a mentor for small institutions, and possibly contribute funding, staff time, and resources to a project in the public interest. Another outside- the -box solution could be a partnership with a documentary filmmaker, a TV channel, or another media outlet that would develop a film or TV show about "discovering America's treasures" and create a multimedia experience for viewers. Currently, for profit companies help libraries in many ways, and although for profit sponsorship is not suitable for every project, creative nontraditional funding methods are worth exploring. Conclusion Efforts to bring hidden collections to light including digitizing materials, linking them together, making them easily available online, and much more must open up to public libraries. Their collections hold countless items of proven historical value, and, in the words of one expert, offer a "uniqueness factor" that cannot be replicated. Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress, described digitization in moral terms: "[W]e will continue to digitize as much material as we can. And we will take advantage of the Internet for making our resources available worldwide. We must do so to enable people far from our physical libraries to use and enjoy our holdings. Because we now have the means to extend the reach of our libraries, I think we also have a moral imperative to do so.... We now have the 8 I Digitizing Hidden Collections in Public Libraries technological ability to operate far beyond our walls. Let us also cross over our walls to help each other do it." The walls that block hidden collections in smaller institutions from digitization initiatives may be high and intimidating, but they are worth scaling. A program making these collections available to the public worldwide advances the mission of librarianship and speaks to the ideals of cultural heritage institutions all over the cou ntry. NOTES 1 Much of the work for this paper was completed during my tenure as a Google Policy Fellow at the American Library Association in summer 2010. This paper is not intended to present a full survey of current digitization activities in the library field, but instead to make a case for a comprehensive project that could digitize and aggregate materials in small to medium -sized public libraries. 2 "Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives." Council for Library and Information Resources. [accessed December 1, 2010 at http: /www.clir. org /hiddencollections /index.html] 3 Jones, Barbara M. "Hidden Collections, Scholarly Barriers: Creating Access to Unprocessed Special Collections Materials in America's Research Libraries." RBM: AJournal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 5:2. Fall 2004: 88 -105. [accessed March 14, 2011 at http: /rbm.acrl.org /content /5 /2 /88,fu1l.pdf+html] 4 Jones, 91. 5 Cleary, Patricia and David Neumann, "The Challenges of Primary Sources, Collaboration, and the K -16 Elizabeth Murray Project." The History Teacher 43.1,2009. [accessed March 30, 2011 at http://www.historycooperative.orgijournals/ht/43.1 /clears. htm I 6 Jones, 89. 7 "Public Library Technology Landscape." Public Library Funding Technology Access Study, 2009- 10. [accessed July 28, 2010 at