Local History Collections in Libraries / Edition 1

by Faye Phillips

Overview

This comprehensive manual of operations for managing local history material within the administrative framework of a library covers issues of administration, acquisitions, access, and use of all formats of material. Information on continually changing areas such as preservation, copyright and other legal concerns, computer applications, and national databases is also addressed, along with public relations roles and outreach activities for local history collections. Guidelines for administration of nontraditional library material (e.g., manuscripts) will be especially helpful to librarians. Archivists will value the manual as one of continuing practical education and theoretical development as exemplified by the Society of American Archivists' Basic Manual Series and Archival Fundamental Series. Manuscript curators, students, and administrators will also benefit from this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781563081415
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/15/1995
Pages:	164
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

FAYE PHILLIPS is Head of Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Editorial Reviews

The successor to Enid Thompson's Local History Collections: A Manual for Librarians (1978), this book addresses an audience that is wider (from archivists to administrators) and more technologically advanced. Phillips is head of a local history collection at Louisiana State University, and she uses her library as an example, reproducing its forms and documents as samples throughout the book. She starts by defining local history as "history from the perspective of a community, state, or region" centered around "ordinary" institutions and individuals. What sets the local history collection apart from the main library collection is the diversity-and often value-of its materials; these may include books, newspapers, directories, maps, photographs, and personal papers-many of which cannot be replaced. The rest of the book is devoted to the developing, arranging, accessing, preserving, publicizing, and administering of a local history collection. The suggestions offered are for the most part standard textbook; their usefulness lies in the thoughtful applications to this kind of collection, as well as the sheer art of bringing them all together in one place. Included is a comprehensive bibliography and several handy lists of addresses. For the reasons cited above, Local History Collections in Libraries is a worthwhile contribution to special librarianship.-Alene D. Oestreicher, Baltimore Museum of Art Lib.

Library Journal