Between Tradition and Automation in Special Collections: A Memoir

Abstract

Insofar as my career in libraries straddled the time when “scholar librarians” dominated special collections to the time when “techie librarians” had pretty much taken over, and as I was in the middle of this change at several institutions, I would like to offer a few observations on this radical transition in special collections librarianship.Early DaysMy first library job was in 1973 in the cataloging department of Bowdoin College. A few weeks after I started, this library entered the computer age by acquiring its first OCLC terminal. OCLC had been founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library . . .