Are Libraries Prepared for the Second Digital Transformation of Distinctive Collections?

Academic and research libraries, as well as public libraries, historical societies, and other organizations, hold extensive collections of rare and unique materials, such as archival and manuscript collections. These materials form an essential part of humanity’s cultural and historical record, and they are the vital source material for many humanistic fields. I believe that a second digital transformation is at hand for distinctive collections. How can library leaders establish a strategy for their distinctive collections that is fit for purpose today?

Guest Post — Rethinking Disciplinary Data Regimes

Between a political policy environment focused on defunding and deleting data collections – an environment in which little can be trusted – and an onslaught of new AI tools that feed indiscriminately on data, bits of information at the intersection of rows and columns are appearing in headlines more than ever before. To avoid cultural memory loss, we must build systems that save what humanity needs across disciplinary silos rather than saving some archives and losing others through an accident of history.