I work in a Rare Books and Special Collections department in a library that is not a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).

My impression is that much of the Rare Books and Special Collections literature in particular tends to focus upon ARL Libraries, in part because there is a HANDY-DANDY LIST for surveys. This means that a decent subset of libraries that do Rare Books/Special Collections work get left out of the conversation about How Rare Books and Special Collections functions: independent research libraries, liberal arts colleges, small society libraries, etc.

So let’s change the conversation. Let’s compile a HANDY-DANDY LIST of NON-ARL libraries that do rare books (as opposed to stand-alone archives, which I’m guessing SAA has a handle on).

Here is the form: http://goo.gl/forms/1l6kpTGuBv

All information gathered will be made open access to anyone who wants it. Let’s change the research conversation by including more folks!

(Better yet, if this work has already been done and I missed it, please point me to it!)

ETA: Here’s an additional place to enter any burning questions you’d love to see as part of a survey about the work that we do. http://goo.gl/forms/sfWe44j57p