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Maximizing the impact of digital collections.

Article Excerpt
Libraries have been increasingly involved in the creation of digital library collections and other content repositories. It's not unusual at all for libraries to be involved in digitizing collections of manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, postcards, or multimedia content such as audio recordings and radio or television programming. Academic libraries have become increasingly active in building repositories of content produced within their institutions and in other aspects of publishing scholarly content as well. While books and journals--both the print and electronic variety--stand as the mainstays of library content offerings, it's the collections of rare, historic, or local material that provide the greatest opportunity to increase the impact that the library makes on its community. These collections of nontraditional content provide the best jewels of the library, and delivering them digitally can amplify their impact tremendously.

Digital collections offer libraries another tremendous benefit--they can be leveraged to draw additional users into the library's web presence. This addresses one of my main concerns regarding library strategies, which involves positioning the library's web presence as the key destination for library users, second only to the library's physical facilities. (I defer to others when it comes to issues involving "Library as Place.") After all, libraries compete in an increasingly crowded landscape of information providers on the web. We must work hard to draw in our users so that they can take advantage of the authoritative content and services we provide for them rather than relying on the offerings of the...

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