“Margins as Core”: Digitizing Hidden Collections

by Aran Ruth

Organize! A Working Women's Handbook
Berkeley, CA: Union W.A.G.E. Educational Committee, 1975

THEN AND NOW

The problem of hidden special collections, what the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) calls the “uncollected, uncataloged, unprocessed, or underprocessesed" rare materials that populate many libraries, came to greater attention in 1998 with an ARL survey concluding that these collections needed accessibility to a wider audience. ARL’s survey and 2003 white paper, “Hidden Collections, Scholarly Barriers” helped, for example, generate a 2009 project at NYU’s Tamiment Library, making accessible their extensive collection of printed ephemera containing valuable materials dealing with labor history and civil rights.

Since then, other efforts have been initiated, such as the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR). Because there are hundreds of small repositories across the state that don’t employ a professional archivist, the project, which began in 2011, aims to both preserve these repositories' holdings, enabling wider accessibility to important items that may have never come to the attention of scholars or the public.

One reason these collections can remain hidden is lack of funding. Although Lisa Carter and Beth Whitaker argue that “[l]ibraries should embrace the material on the margins as core and invest in actions that make them relevant,” the work of processing and digitizing these collections is expensive. Funding efforts like the Council on Library and Information Resources' (CLIR) Digitizing Hidden Collections grants attempt to address the issue; the grants have funded several cataloging and digitizing projects, including both the Tamiment project and HCI-PSAR. In 2019, CLIR awarded Amherst a grant to digitize their collections dealing with the history of disability rights activism; this year, Georgia State libraries received a grant to digitize their labor-and-civil-rights-related documents and records. And as of November 2020, CLIR has partnered with the HBCU Library Alliance to survey and catalog historical materials at HBCUs. 

ANOTHER ASPECT                             

While we generally consider hidden collections as uncatalogued rare materials, some result from lacunae in records that do exist. Sarah Lindenbaum details her ongoing efforts to reveal a hidden collection of books owned by an early-modern British woman, Frances Wolfreston: the books are identifiable by Wolfreston’s inscription ("frances wolfreston hor bouk") and located across several libraries’ special collections. Because the inscriptions aren't included in the books’ records, searching for them is difficult. Lindenbaum notes other collections like Wolfreston’s books would go unrecognized without more detailed cataloging methods. Identifying and filling these gaps in the records can surface collections like these, even though they may be “multispatial”:held across several different libraries. Digitization further helps connect items like these across disparate collections, and considering Wolfreston’s books as a "multispatial" hidden collection expands the boundaries of the designation itself. The continuing cataloging and digitization of collections like these will no doubt bring to light other generative, organizational modes for scholars who have greater access to the materials.

Inscription, Wolfreston, Frances (1607-1677).

The ARL’s initial survey took place 23 years ago and it's evident much work remains to be done. Valuable materials, like ephemera, give us a more nuanced vision of the past. Making these materials available is important not just for scholars, but for the historical record overall, as part of the ongoing work of decentering dominant narratives--from uncovering early women readers to surfacing previously unstudied civil rights materials--and writing marginalized voices back into history.  

References:

Altermatt, R., & Hilton, A. (2012). Hidden collections within hidden collections: Providing access to printed ephemera. The American Archivist, 75(1), 171-194. Retrieved June 25, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23290585

Carter, L. R., & Whittaker, B. M. (2015). Area studies and special collections: Shared challenges, shared strength. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 15(2), 353-373. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1353/pla.2015.0017

Dimunation, M. (2012). Everything we see hides another: Coping with hidden collections in the 21st century library. In Bernhardt B., Hinds L., & Strauch K. (Eds.), Something’s gotta give: Charleston conference proceedings (pp. 21-29). Purdue University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt6wq4sf.7

Lindenbaum, S. (2018). Hiding in plain sight: How electronic records can lead us to early modern women readers. In Knight L., White M., & Sauer E. (Eds.), Women’s bookscapes in early modern Britain: Reading, ownership, circulation (pp. 193-213). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Retrieved June 25, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.9901165.14

McCarthy, J., Caust-Ellenbogen, C., & Leu, S. (2016). Building an inclusive community of archival practice: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, 83(1), 97-102. doi:10.5325/pennhistory.83.1.0097