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Rare book collections are special, not only in terms of their physical appearance but also because of their historical significance and the information they contain. The purpose of this study is twofold: to identify the physical condition of rare book collections and to determine the main causes of damage to rare books collection that belongs to a museum library in Indonesia.

This research involved conducting a survey of the physical condition of the collection of rare books owned by a museum library in Indonesia. Supporting data was also obtained through interviews with one of the staff who served as the museum collection conservator. This study used random sampling to take samples from the collection, which consisted of 950 rare books, with total sample of 91.

The results obtained state that the condition of the existing rare book collection is classified as severely damaged. One of the causes of damage that can be addressed immediately is the cleaning regime: the collection and library space should be cleaned thoroughly and regularly so that dust and dirt in and around the rare book collection can be reduced.

This research was limited to physical identification, which can be done easily because it does not require various kinds of laboratory tests. It was a case study examining a single collection in a single museum library. The pool of books from which the samples were taken was therefore relatively homogenous. Therefore, it is hoped that further research can identify other factors and types of damage in more detail so that all damage to rare book collections can be identified and mitigated.

Research discussing the condition of rare book collections, especially for special libraries in museums in Indonesia, is still very limited. Detailed surveys of the physical condition of collections, especially rare book collections in museums, have rarely been discussed by previous research. The work will contribute to assessing the physical condition of rare book collections.

The purpose of this article is to share this study’s efforts to foster belonging in special collections public service spaces, as Black and Latina practitioners of color, while navigating known systemic professional barriers to inclusivity in the library information profession.

In this conceptual essay, frameworks from Black and Chicana feminist theories are applied which resonate deeply with this study’s practices but are not often encountered in library spaces, namely intersectional nepantla, which is used to situate the positionality within special collections.

Fostering belonging in special collections environments is an ongoing effort, but this study offers reflections in solidarity with all who seek to increase inclusivity and equity in their spaces. It is believed that the cumulative impact of many small actions implemented from the ground up can potentially be as significant as top-down, administrative charges.

This article's originality stems from both its authors and the methodology. As BIPOC practitioners, to the authors emphasize the authentic, day-to-day interactions that are essential to developing inclusivity and equity in special collections and archival spaces. Special collections reference workers have limited time off desk to collaborate and conduct research.

The academic library’s physical capacity and its service obligations to local users structured the traditional print collection. Largely freed of these constraints, the digital collection manager enjoys unprecedented freedoms but now contends with a collection susceptible to resource sprawl and scope ambiguity. This exploratory study aims to consider the possibility that intra-field social processes help to structure and routinize digital collection practice.

Lacking the constraints to which print collections are subject, electronic resource and digital library collections are more likely to reflect idiosyncratic institutional interests and therefore, to demonstrate significant variation. Evidence of homogeneity may suggest the influence of heretofore underexplored social structures. To determine the extent of such homogeneity, the author performed exploratory/descriptive content analyses on ten electronic resource collection development policies and six digital library collection development policies.

The data reveal among both the electronic resource and digital library collection policies significant uniformity. Content analyses demonstrate consistent themes (e.g. media, audience, selection priorities, etc.) and rhetoric. These findings lend support to the study’s central hypothesis regarding latent social structures. Analyses also reveal a set of unanticipated constraints unique to digital collection management.

Despite the breadth and maturity of literature addressing the Digital Turn in academic librarianship, relatively little attention has been paid to the social dimensions of collection management. This work represents an important corrective and suggests new theoretical approaches to the study of digital collection practice.

This study aims to describe and examine the strategy used by the Taman Ismail Marzuki Library for increasing its social sustainability capabilities.

The research questions in this study are (1) What is the TIM Library’s social sustainability strategy for supporting the green library concept? and (2) What are the impediments and facilitators to implementing the green library concept in the TIM Library through a social sustainability process? This study adopted a qualitative approach, using a case study method, in research conducted over the period July–November 2022. The data collection methods used were purposive sampling, interviews, observations and document analysis.

This study’s findings indicate that the TIM library’s social sustainability strategy supports economic sustainability up to the independence stage, whereas environmental sustainability is still at the empowerment stage. The green library concept is sustainable due to the library’s commitment to the “third place” concept and library cooperation. The TIM Library’s continuing strategy to use creative community development programs to attract public interest and change the library’s perception in the community should help it realize the green library concept.

Libraries can use the research findings to guide their strategies for community engagement and inclusivity.

The paper suggests that policymakers supporting libraries can consider incorporating elements of the Green Library concept and community development stages into policies to enhance the societal impact of libraries.

The significance of this study is that it uncovers strategies to help public libraries meet the requirements of the green library concept.

Cultural heritage archiving is experiencing an increase in digitalisations of artefacts in the last 15 years. The reason behind this trend is a demand for providing information about the artefact in a more accessible way to the audience, for example, through online delivery or virtual reality. Other reasons might be to simplify and automate the management of artefacts. Having a ‘digital copy’ of artefacts, allows one to search an archive and plan its storage and dissemination in a comprehensive manner. With the increased digitalisation comes an increased use of artificial intelligence [AI] applications. AI can be very beneficial in classifying artefacts automatically through machine learning [ML] and natural language processing [NLP]. For example, an algorithm can identify the source and age of artefacts based on an image and can do this much faster for a large collection of photos than a human. Although AI provides many benefits, it also presents challenges: Sophisticated AI techniques require certain insights on how they work, need specialists to customise a solution, and require an existing large dataset to train an algorithm. Another challenge is that typical AI techniques are regarded as black boxes, which means they decide, but it is not obvious why a decision has been made. This chapter describes a project in collaboration with the South Australian Museum [SAM] on the application of AI to extract material lists from a description of artefacts. A large dataset to train an algorithm did not exist, and hence, a customised approach was required. The outcome of the project was the application of NLP in combination with easy-to-customise rules that can be applied by non-IT specialists. The resulting prototype achieved the extraction of materials from a large list of artefacts within seconds and a flexible solution that can be applied on other collections in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to share the process, findings and conclusions from one library’s iterative usability study of its website design to inform other libraries as they perform their own assessments.

A task-completion usability study was conducted with eight undergraduate students across two iterations: the first gauged the usability of a redesigned library website and the second gauged the effectiveness of the first iteration’s findings.

We found that users performed better when the site provided multiple access points to the same information, displayed a prominent chat feature, limited the amount of text on a given page and avoided library jargon. Not only was the second round of testing important for confirming that first-round recommendations were effective but also it proved useful in catching a problem with the site that was unintentionally created during the time between tests.

No demographic data were collected during the study, thus hindering our ability to analyze our users through these data points.

This study demonstrates the value of iterative usability testing, especially when untested changes made between site versions may produce usability issues.

In this article, the author discusses works from the French Documentation Movement in the 1940s and 1950s with regard to how it formulates bibliographic classification systems as documents. Significant writings by Suzanne Briet, Éric de Grolier and Robert Pagès are analyzed in the light of current document-theoretical concepts and discussions.

Conceptual analysis.

The French Documentation Movement provided a rich intellectual environment in the late 1940s and early 1950s, resulting in original works on documents and the ways these may be represented bibliographically. These works display a variety of approaches from object-oriented description to notational concept-synthesis, and definitions of classification systems as isomorph documents at the center of politically informed critique of modern society.

The article brings together historical and conceptual elements in the analysis which have not previously been combined in Library and Information Science literature. In the analysis, the article discusses significant contributions to classification and document theory that hitherto have eluded attention from the wider international Library and Information Science research community. Through this, the article contributes to the currently ongoing conceptual discussion on documents and documentality.

The paper aims to provide a critical review of how variations in the conceptualization and contextualization of hate crime across US cities might impact how their individual law enforcement agencies collect hate crime data. Media reports and political discourses present hate crime as a prevalent problem in the USA. However, this representation of hate crime in the public sphere is not reflected in the relatively low national numbers of hate crimes published annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Drawing primarily on the national hate crime data for the period 2008–2018, this author conducted a secondary research study of the concept, context, extent and law enforcement collection of hate crime data in five cities in the USA.

This paper is a product of some of the findings of the study, which include the definition of hate crime at the federal, state and city levels and the contextualization of hate crimes at these levels. The findings show inconsistencies in how the five cities and associated law enforcement agencies conceptualize hate crime and in how they collect and report hate crime data at local and national levels.

Through its analysis of how five US cities and the associated law enforcement agencies interpret and respond to hate crime data collection, with recommendations of best practices for hate crime data collection by law enforcement agencies, the paper contributes to the academic and nonacademic debate on hate crime.

Warren Nutter and James M. Buchanan did not revise “Universal Education” to turn against providing tuition grants to segregated schools in 1965. Their revised text contains no call to expel segregation academies from the tuition grant program and does not even express disapproval of the goals or the work of segregation academies. Recent claims to that effect by Fleury (2023) and Levy and Peart (2023) cannot be sustained by either textual or contextual evidence.