The Evolving Role of a Special Collections Curator
[This blog post is a transcript of a job talk given at a final interview for a curatorial position in a university special collections library]
Hello and thanks for virtually attending today! My name is Allie Alvis, my pronouns are she/they, and I am currently the Special Collections Reference Librarian at the Smithsonian Libraries. I’m very excited to be talking to you today about how the role of a curator can evolve to help satisfy the needs of both traditional and emerging users. And I would like to note that I am speaking to you from traditional Piscataway land.
The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology identifies that the word “curator” first appears in the English language around 1375 as “curature,” a person having the care of souls. Its origin goes back to the Latin curatorem (overseer, guardian) which in turn comes from the verb curare, to look after or care for. It wasn’t until the mid-17th century that curator took on its current cultural heritage managerial sense.
As you can see, the word “curator” has itself evolved in definition. Yet, it has also retained elements of its original meaning, just as evolution in the natural world leaves genetic traces of what once was. Considering the word and how it has changed over time like this is a worthwhile intellectual exercise, but it’s also a bit… two-dimensional on its own. However, when we use this consideration to examine the practical and philosophical role of a curator, it provides a valuable rubric for curatorial potential.
A good special collections curator cares for collections items with an eye to caring for the “souls” who use them. After all, without these “souls”—our users and researchers—special collections libraries would be better characterised as an informational safe deposit box. The best way to care for users is to understand what they want from us and the collections. But herein lies an issue: what do our users want?
One of the most impactful lessons from my library degree is that librarians can’t know every potential need of every potential user. But that’s where curation comes in: we can prepare the collections, the culture of the reading room, and ourselves to be in a responsive position when requests, reference or otherwise, catch us off-guard.
A brief digression to touch on the term, “off-guard;” while it is certainly a curatorial duty to protect and preserve collections, it is dangerous to see potential users as individuals we need to “guard” the collections against. Indeed, the use of many special collections libraries is reduced by the perception that they guard more than share their holdings. The idea that rare materials are only for certain kinds of people is pervasive and hard to tackle, particularly since seemingly unfriendly security requirements for the use of rare materials are necessary for their preservation. I’ve written numerous blogs, articles, and even a book chapter about mitigating the apparent conflict of interest between use and preservation, but maintaining a balance between these two issues in practice will probably always be a challenge that needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
The topic for this talk identifies two kinds of users: traditional and emerging. It is the emerging user, the “potential” user, that is most often put off by reading room conventions and/or stereotypes that are familiar to the traditional user. These emerging users are not just schoolkids and undergrads; they are people with non-academic backgrounds, people from minority groups who have traditionally not seen themselves represented in collections, and life-long learners who were unable to achieve their educational goals in their youth. They are people who don’t even know special collections exist, but know that they need a certain piece of information. They are people who saw a cool picture of an old illustration online and want to use it in an art project. Or, they are people that don’t even know what they’re looking for, but wanted to know what was going on with the pretty books in this room. Anyone is a potential user!
The User Spectrum
Traditional users are a bit easier to draw a line under: they’re the familiar faces, or the experienced, or the academics, or all of the above. But while I understand the need to contrast them and emerging users, I find it offers a bit more nuance to look at these two sets of users as points on a spectrum, and mobile ones at that.
As users migrate around the spectrum—as they become more comfortable in the reading room, as they change research interests, as they work with more fragile materials—the amount of assistance they need will change. This is where the “curature” word origin really shines through!
All of this broad philosophy and definition-making form the groundwork of how the role of curator can evolve practically to better serve users. I mentioned 3 things earlier that I believe largely encompass the current responsibilities of a curator: the collections, the reading room culture, and ourselves. The heart of the role should always be those 3 responsibilities; it is our practice within them that may shift from user to user.
With this in mind, I would like to draw attention to 3 “action items” that can help the curatorial practice be more adjustable across the user spectrum: meet users where they are, listen, and be nimble. Pushes are being made in pockets across the field to do these things, and many special collections librarians are already engaging in efforts that fall within these three items, but I don’t think they have truly been integrated into curatorial roles.
First, let’s talk about meeting users where they are—physically, virtually, and culturally. While the physical aspect of this has always been a particular interest of mine, the virtual aspect has taken on new dimension and necessity thanks to the ongoing pandemic, and the cultural aspect is thankfully becoming more widely acknowledged, though it is sadly happening in the wake of tragedy.
In the recent Rare Book School Zoom roundtable “Books as Bridges,” bookseller Rebecca Romney described the mental “snap” that happens when someone holds a rare document for the first time. This physical contact serves as an entry point for potential users; it’s something that I base a great deal of my rare book instruction on. As someone whose research interests largely revolve around the material culture of the book, I am very familiar with the oodles of information traditional users can get from some good one-on-one time with an item in the reading room if they are accustomed to this avenue of thought—it depends on where they are in the user spectrum. But as I mentioned before, the reading room might be daunting to some, and difficult to access for others. I dream of taking teaching collections on (supervised) “rare book road trips” to university and K-12 classrooms, community centers, and other places that are more familiar to emerging users! Although we as librarians understand that these books are for everyone, taking them out of the context of the perceived “ivory tower” will help to drive this home. Taking our expertise out of this context is useful too; more casual venues like Nerd Nite or Profs and Pints events show that library folks can also be cool!
Many universities plan to engage in hybrid instruction for the Fall 2020 semester, so continuing and enhancing virtual methods of meeting users where they are is critical. Libraries can build on the success of existing digital programs and expand into new avenues of virtual reference services. With no more equipment needed than an overhead camera or a trusty smart phone, special collections curators can provide live instruction to emerging users and research assistance to traditional users at a distance; after the pandemic recedes, we can continue to “staff” this virtual arm of the library to reach users who experience barriers to physical access. We can even pre-record material, such as rare book handling instructions, which will ultimately make our lives easier when we return to fully in-person instruction. Understanding where to meet users virtually is important too; if we are unable to tell them about digital resources, or provide resources on a platform that is rarely used, then the value of the effort that went into constructing those resources will not be fully realized. This can mean paying attention to social media trends (more on that later), but it also means being nimble enough to shift platforms based on need.
The heart of curation is educated selection and organization. This role should reach beyond the collections; we must consciously select a culture of openness. Before setting foot in the reading room, users need to be able to envision themselves there. This is an important part of curatorship: providing a welcoming space with which to work with collections. The ongoing demonstrations against racism in policing and beyond remind us of the human pain that some institutions and collections have ignored or outright benefitted from, and how that affects the comfort levels of Black and indigenous people of color trying to engage in learning. In her article “White Supremacy Culture,” Tema Okun describes how “Culture is powerful precisely because it is so present and at the same time so very difficult to name or identify.” Okun goes on to explain how organizations may unconsciously reinforce cultural norms such as an emphasis on results over processes or an inability to perceive personal biases which creates a deeply threatening space for people of color from both academic and non-academic backgrounds.
You may have noticed that I front-loaded my introduction with my pronouns and a land acknowledgement. While writing this talk, I really wrestled with whether or not to put in the pronouns in particular. However, normalizing the culture of talking about and addressing traditionally difficult topics like colonialism and gender identity is important to creating a space where users from diverse backgrounds are able to conduct their research without fear of judgement of their lines of inquiry or their personhood.
Now, on to Listen. This action item is closely related to meeting users where they are culturally. We as librarians are used to giving answers and explaining things to users and audiences; But people can also tell us much about our collections that we might not be conscious of. This ties back into the idea that we can’t know everything that a user may want; whether they cross our threshold physically or virtually, we need to efficiently be able to figure out what they need from us, and how they need it.
An important part of listening is ensuring that users feel comfortable enough to talk to us in the first place, and coming to them in their spaces may make them more able to communicate their needs. In the same Rare Book School roundtable that I mentioned before, Mark Dimunation, head of the rare book division at the Library of Congress, outlined his desire for special collections libraries to be an active part of their communities. But this cannot occur spontaneously; becoming integrated into communities will not happen without an active effort on our part to listen to what questions, research and otherwise, they may have. In their lecture about the history of the Pittsburgh Queer History Project, Harrison Apple, co-founder of the Project, noted that “records preservation is not in and of itself community care.” By listening to our current and future users about their knowledge—or lack thereof—of collections items, we can understand where we need to adjust how we make them available. This listening will also aid in the building and description of collections—while continuing to collect to our strengths, we can establish new strengths with an eye to different perspectives on both.
Interpreting what we hear from traditional and emerging users is just as important as listening in the first place. In the age of the Internet, “curator” has become synonymous with “recommendations.” A Steam curator account recommends video games; if you get popular enough on social media to be branded an “influencer,” you can sign up to the Amazon Curator program to sell your followers products that you like; and countless websites offer tips on “content curation” for your digital presence. So, how can these concepts be applied in the reading room? Chances are, your users will have the cultural knowledge to separate the concept of “Internet curation” from “heritage curation,” but they also… might not. In order to better serve users, we must listen closely to how they phrase their inquiries; are they expecting us to respond with a recommendation, an explanation, or both? Obviously, I’m not advocating for the curatorial role to shift in the Internet direction, but it’s important to understand how emerging users may approach us for help. For example, I have received some of my most interesting reference questions on social media! Emerging users may see social media as a more casual space to make inquiries, and answering them there lets them know that they have been heard and we are willing to respond.
Finally, let’s talk about being nimble (as possible) and expecting change. We work in a field where much of the collection has been the same for a long time, but that doesn’t mean the curatorial role has to be. Being static in how we collect and make materials available is not a luxury that can be afforded to us between the continued development of technology and the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic.
As we’ve witnessed with the rise and fall of microforms over the course of the 20th century and the 21st century push for digitization, cloud storage, and open access, even things that we expect to be in place forever and invest heavily in may suddenly be yesterday’s news. Moore’s Law, which states that the growth of microprocessors is exponential, is unexpectedly relevant to libraries here; the length of time for which technologies are current is getting shorter and shorter thanks to continued innovations in the world of computing. Keeping abreast of technological advances, as well as what can be done with these advances—linked data is a great example of this—is important to curatorial practice, in order to continue providing the best access for users.
Nimbleness and the assumption of change in access are more important than ever as we try to navigate the COVID landscape. Although [university for which I interviewed] has announced they will be conducting hybrid instruction for fall 2020, new surges of the virus before or during the semester will influence this decision. This has the potential to impact traditional users in particular. Students, fellows, post-docs, and other time-sensitive researchers who have begun papers or projects that depend on access to physical books may find themselves once again barred from the reading room, their schedules disrupted perhaps beyond repair. This uncertainty will also affect how we reach out to and cultivate emerging users; a class in the reading room physically will be more impactful than assigned readings and looking at digitized books. We must be prepared to pivot to more involved virtual research assistance and instruction when and if that time comes; we shouldn’t be pessimistic by any means, but we should expect the best and prepare for the worst in this changeable time. We as special collections professionals know that in-person instruction and assistance is preferable to virtual in many ways, but rather than resigning ourselves to offering access that is somehow less than, we can look at this as an opportunity to make ourselves stronger in all arenas. We will hopefully be free of the threat of prolonged closures due to pandemics in the future, but the tools and resources we build now will continue to be useful to researchers who cannot access the collections due to physical distance.
While most of this section has focused on being technologically nimble, the role of curator must also be culturally nimble. The lens through which we view our collections and our users is much different than it was 100, 50, and even 20 years ago, and it will continue to change in coming years. As much as special collections are seen as stable ports in the storm of an unstable world, we do not exist in isolation. Changing institutional and political/cultural priorities, which directly lead to shifts in material use in the reading room, must inform how curators interpret their collections.
This action item comes with an important caveat: nimble as possible. Libraries of all kinds have been on the bad end of the budgetary stick for quite some time now, so even if our intentions are good we may not be financially able to be as nimble as we would like. While donor cultivation for the purpose of receiving collections items has always been a key tenant of rare book librarianship, in recent decades libraries have relied more and more on financial donors. This is reflected in the duty of liaising with donors and potential donors being integrated into the job description of [job for which I interviewed]. By incorporating meeting users where they are and listening, the curator will be able to more effectively build relationships with donors, and thus enable the library to be more financially nimble.
Recognizing that the role of a curator has evolved and must continue to evolve means acknowledging that we may have fallen short in some areas in the past. However, too much navel gazing and wallowing about missed opportunities is not productive; it’s important to take stock of where we have struggled and use that to inform how we function moving forward. Making meeting users where they are, listening, and being nimble more than “other duties as assigned” are ways to do this, but what will ultimately happen “on the ground” will depend on how willing the curator in this position is to evolve.
Part of evolving positively means identifying where things shouldn’t change. Of course, we cannot and should not be completely static, but we should take stock of the things we do well and make sure we keep doing them. The [university at which I interviewed] and the degrees and programs associated with it has such a stellar reputation for a reason! The curator who comes into this position should balance the need for evolution and the need to maintain and build on traditional aspects of the role.
If the selection committee sees fit to offer me the position of [job for which I interviewed], I will give my all to the continued success of Special Collections and the Library as a whole. I am committed to providing the highest possible degree of curatorial service based on the history and art of the book, while ensuring that the map collection is more fully integrated into the fold… so to speak. I understand that taking the needs of users into account in all of our work is crucial to maintaining a functional collection, and that these needs are fluid as users move around the spectrum from emerging to traditional. Finally, I am thrilled at the prospect of being able to work more closely with professors, students, and library colleagues to provide the high degree of service expected from the [library at which I interviewed].
Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
