markup and error correction treatments required to make non-consumptive research, as opposed to simple search and discovery, truly useful to scholars puts the online collections of books and serials into a category that is far from common and more like the incarnation at the network level of the physical special collections that we know and love. Special collection skills and expertise are not unnecessary at the network level, they are simply operating in a different context. The final trap I would mention lies in the suggestion that special collections are what give libraries and their home institutions their distinctiveness. Surely, special collections can be a source of pride, expertise, and excellence, and these qualities can motivate deep and useful investments. However, taken to an extreme, the argument about institutional distinctiveness can also limit scholarly productivity by provoking the impulse to protect silo-like boundaries around collections, thereby hindering the natural scholarly impulse to create and explore links among related special collections across various holding institutions. Many have called for more openness within and connections across special collections,19 but many barriers remain. I particularly invite library directors to take a close look at the rights and permission statements that they have readers sign to use their special collections. Perhaps they will be as surprised as I was at the general, blanket, and highly restrictive claims their institutions make to usage rights over this material.20 I conclude from this brief critique of the conventional wisdom about the commonness of book and serial collections and the distinctiveness of special collections that we need to refine our value proposition. The common versus distinctive opposition is simply too crude to get us very far. What is important about books and serials is that moving digital surrogates and newly produced works to the network level generates aggregations operating at a scale that advances existing lines of inquiry and opens new ones and makes scholars and students more productive, even when using individual works. These same criteria must form the heart of the value proposition for special collections. RLI 267 35 The Changing Role of Special Collections in Scholarly Communications ( C O N T I N U E D ) DECEMBER 2009 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC …taken to an extreme, the argument about institutional distinctiveness can also limit scholarly productivity by provoking the impulse to protect silo-like boundaries around collections…. I particularly invite library directors to take a close look at the rights and permission statements that they have readers sign to use their special collections. Perhaps they will be as surprised as I was at the general, blanket, and highly restrictive claims their institutions make to usage rights over this material.
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