Demystifying Library Resources and Expenditures: Collecting Distinctive Collections

The acquisition of library resources for scholarship and teaching known as “collection development,” is a complicated process that strikes a balance between access and ownership. Factors, such as price, budget, availability, and licensing, increasingly impact the libraries’ abilities to provide the most relevant and useful set of resources for our campus community. We seek creative solutions, focus on broad and deep access to information and resources, as well as open scholarship.

Join us for a series of discussions about key library collection issues that impact research and study at Vanderbilt. Please register below for the date that works best for you, and see the list of standalone sessions and registration links for the entire series. We look forward to your participation and input. Sessions open to the Vanderbilt Community only. For questions or more information, please contact Julie Glascock.

Session 6: Demystifying Library Resources and Expenditures: Collecting Distinctive Collections

The university’s distinctive collections –those rare materials housed in special collections, the archives and the art gallery– were initially formed through donations. While today’s curators make strategic purchases to fill gaps in the collections, it is their cultivation of donors that helps us acquire important collections that support instruction and research, and makes collecting distinctive materials so different from that of collecting circulating collections. Please join us for this lunchtime talk to learn more about how distinctive collections are acquired, the costs associated with making these collections accessible, and the role instruction and research play in the acquisition process.

The Delia Zapata Olivella Collection and Special Collecting Initiatives, Paula Covington, Librarian for Latin American and Iberian Studies, Latinx, Spanish and Portuguese and Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies
Recent Manuscript Acquisitions and Donor Relations, Zach Johnson, Curator of Special Collections
Charles Baudelaire: A Tale of Two Salons, Yvonne Boyer, Librarian for History of Art & Architecture, French & Italian, and W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies
New Works in the Art Gallery: Collecting Remarkable Marginalized Voices, Kali Mason, Registrar and Collections Manager, and Emily Weiner, Interim Curator
The History of Medicine and Surgery Society, Physician Historians, and Future Collections, Christopher Ryland, Curator, History of Medicine Collections
The James Lawson Photograph Collection: Purchasing through Specialized Vendors, Kathy Smith, University Archivist and Associate Director, Special Collections

Tuesday, March 2, 2021| Noon – 1 PM CST REGISTER

Friday, March 5, 2021| Noon – 1 PM CST REGISTER

View the entire Demystifying Library Resources & Expenditures: A Faculty Discussion Series