The Discovery Adhocracy: Special Collections, Information Resource Management, and Scholarly Communications Departments Partnership

The paper will explore how the library’s Special Collections, Information Resource Management, and Scholarly Communications departments are partnering to facilitate campus community publications and digital assets, while centering student voices. We will describe the roles of each department involved in the partnership and provide two case studies of how the partnership works in application. One of the case study publications, Toyon: Seven Decades of Student Driven Publishing, gave students the opportunity to work in research and writing teams to create an open-access book. These professional, paid positions provided experience for students to connect with alumni, conduct research in the archive, author a book, and design the layout. Two of the hired students took their experience with them into publishing-related, full-time positions within the university. The other case study publication, The North Coast Otters and Public Arts Initiative, connected the library’s digital archive with the publication to provide users with multiple images for each piece of artwork. Both works demonstrate the power of using discovery principles to engage readers with both publications and the archive, and are models for future publication and digital asset projects. The collaborations among the three library departments began informally, but coalesced over time into a regularly scheduled working group to address projects involving the entire scholarship cycle from research to authoring to publication to discovery. Besides providing students with opportunities to develop their resumes, the published products capture the history of the university, build connections between the library and the campus, and promote the university and library to the broader community.