Document Type
Article
ORCID
Rhia Rae 0000-0002-9154-8033
Annia Gonzalez 0000-0002-1311-9444
Abstract
During the summer of 2015, Florida International University (FIU) Special Collections Department acquired a large fine art collection by Cuban artists that included rare and unique paintings. While the collection offers enormous potential for teaching and research, it also presented some challenges. This poster presentation exemplifies how the Special Collections Department at FIU is collecting new primary resource materials that years ago were considered part of museums rather than Special Collections. Following the acquisition of this collection, the Special Collections staff confronted three major challenges: security, space, and access. The poster focuses on the process of providing open access to the collection using the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). It summarizes the motivations behind the acquisition of this collection, the unique challenges and opportunities these types of material present to a university library, and innovative solutions for other libraries seeking to collect and utilize visual art as primary resource materials. Photographs and graphs show the usage of the visual art resources. The department is currently developing an online exhibition with the collections of visual art and will provide usage statistics and site visit statistics, as well as user feedback and survey data.
Originally Presented or Published at:
2016 American Library Association Annual Conference
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Rae, Rhia and Gonzalez, Annia
(2019)
"Special Collections Unbound: The Opportunity for Collecting Visual Arts as Primary Source Materials,"
Athenaeum: Scholarly Works of the FIU Libraries Faculty and Staff: Vol. 0, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/athenaeum/vol0/iss1/4
