Collecting information for research and teaching purposes is a practice followed by scholars across a variety of disciplines. In art history, more specifically, the gathering of research material and the building of personal collections has been a habitual activity that follows the seeking and discovery of information. However, there have been few studies so far examining the collecting behaviour of scholars; thus, there is little information available on how researchers collect and use the gathered material afterwards. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to focus on the needs art historians have when they create, use and curate their personal research collections. Understanding the key role this standard activity plays in research, as well as the criteria upon which scholars' personal collections are built and managed can bring useful results for the facilitation of the research process in terms of customised digital tools and services for scholars. Finally, this paper is based on research for my current PhD Thesis “Personal Research Collections: examining research practices and user needs in art historical research” conducted at the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, under the supervision of Prof. Claire Warwick & Mr Simon Mahony.
During the past years, the large technological advancements have provided research communities with applications and services never considered before. However, as the increased implication of the new technologies in the Arts & Humanities have greatly affected the scholarly research process, the necessity to adapt digital tools and services to the needs of specific groups of researchers has considerably grown. The present paper aims to focus on the informational and methodological behaviour of art historians, so as to identify possible requirements for providing them with functional digital infrastructure. Hence, their research profile, their needs in terms of resources and the methodologies they employ should be examined. The emphasis, in particular, should be given in research activities with great value for art historical research, such as the information seeking and the collection of the required information objects. By supporting these first, stages of research with digital tools and services tailored to the needs of researchers would, actually, facilitate the whole research process in the field. Finally, this paper reports on research conducted for the author's current PhD Thesis "Personal Research Collections: examining research practices and user needs in art historical research", under the supervision of Prof. Claire Warwick and Mr Simon Mahony.
This paper is based on the outcome of a Research Libraries UK (RLUK) project that aimed to explore and understand the approaches employed by RLUK members for capturing and measuring the impact of activities based on special collections and archives. In today's constantly evolving information and scholarly environment, educational and cultural institutions, such as research libraries, are faced with a pressing demand to assess the value of their services and evidence their impact. As part of our goal to develop a better understanding of how research libraries respond to this demand, we collected and analysed case-study and survey data from across the RLUK membership that show the practices and methods of research libraries for increasing and assessing the impact of their collections and related services. As our results showed, research libraries increasingly employ audiencefocused strategies and take advantage of the new possibilities offered by the digital age to enhance access to collections, reach a range of audience groups and achieve greater impact. However, a number of issues, such as the lack of structured methodologies to capture and evaluate the full reach of digital collections and resources or the long-term impact of collections, can make the process of measuring and evidencing value a challenging task for institutions. In this paper, we will present some of the key findings showing the pathways to impact followed by special collection and archive professionals in the UK and Ireland and reflect on the opportunities and challenges that the digital era presents for increasing and measuring this impact.
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