Strategies to Sustain Digitized Special Collections: Key Lessons from Ithaka S+R/ARL Report “Searching for Sustainability”

Museums and libraries are taking advantage of advances in technology to move their rare and unique collections online.  What most institutions learn quickly is that digitization is the easy part. As grant funding rarely covers ongoing operations, the larger challenge is to develop a successful strategy to make sure the digitized collections remain accessible and relevant over time.

ARL and Ithaka S+R are offering a free web seminar that will bring together leaders of the eight cases profiled in the recently published study funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Searching for Sustainability: Strategies from Eight Digitized Special Collections, to share lessons from their own experience in developing and supporting their digital resources. In this interactive session, project leaders and team members will discuss the strategies they have employed to build the audience, infrastructure, and funding models necessary to maintain and grow their digital collections for the long term. 

Moderators

Judy Ruttenberg, Program Director for Transforming Research Libraries, ARL

Nancy Maron, Program Director, Sustainability and Scholarly Communications, Ithaka S+R

Panelists

American Antiquarian Society: Ellen S. Dunlap, President

Biodiversity Heritage Library: Carolyn Sheffield, Program Manager

Florida Folklife Collection: Jonathan Grandage, Archives Historian, and Katrina Harkness, Education Officer

Grateful Dead Archive Online: Robin L. Chandler, Associate University Librarian, University of California, Santa Cruz

Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, and History: Joy Paulson, Director of TEEAL Project and International Programs Librarian, Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

Maine Memory Network: Kathy Bolduc Amoroso, Director of Digital Projects, Maine Historical Society

Quakers & Slavery: John Anderies, Head of Special Collections, Haverford College

Vanderbilt Television News Archive: Joseph D. Combs, Associate Dean, Vanderbilt University Library

Registration

There is no fee to participate in this event. Register online.

On Twitter

Please tweet and follow this event with the hashtag #SustainDigColls.