Challenges in Local Studies Librarianship
From SLNSW
There are many challenging and interesting aspects of Local Studies Librarianship. Key challenges include:
- Collection of past and current materials from a wide range of sources.
- Balancing preservation and access to historical materials
- Using new digital technologies to make old information more widely accessible and able to be reused.
- Conservation, cataloguing and providing access to materials in a very wide range of formats
- Research using a wide array of resources. Many research tools used in Local Studies research were created for completely different purposes than their current use, for example, electoral rolls and telephone books being used for local research, or magistrate’s court records being used to research local families.
- Researching and creating displays
- Writing web histories and other publications
- Satisfying the informational needs of a very wide client base
- Keeping abreast of locally relevant resources held in other institutions
Exercises
- What are the pros and cons of preservation and access?
- What would be the challenges to creating a display of Local Studies material?
