Building a Local Studies Collection

Local Studies collections may grow through:

Large and small donations of material from a wide range of sources, including the community, general public, business and Council.
Purchase of new materials when available or rare and out-of-print materials from antiquarian booksellers, dealers, auctions, including online, etc.
Resource sharing with other public and state libraries; archives and community groups; local information ‘gatekeepers’ and ‘gurus’.
Proactive information seeking projects e.g. Oral history recording; essay writing competitions.
Encouraging use of resources for research, which often results in publication, and in turn, more and better resources for other researchers.
Regular displays of materials, which create interest and potentially more donations from the community.
Research on the part of the Local Studies Librarian. This may be generated in response to enquiries from the public, or in preparation for events and displays.

Exercises

Talk to your Local Studies specialist. How do they source material for the collection?
Has your library collected any digital material for the Local Studies collection?
What kind of content does your library actively create for the collection?