Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library (review)

What are the functions of websites for cultural heritage repositories? At the very least, these sites serve four potential functions. They inform visitors to the sites about the repository itself, its location, history, hours, contact information, and upcoming or past events. The sites also provide visitors the opportunity to discover what resources reside in the repository. Additionally, and this takes place more and more as technologies progress, repositories provide virtual access to collection materials through the website (in the form of digital research collections or curated exhibits). Finally, websites today provide a space, a location, for interaction between the repository and its many publics.

As I review the online presence of the Southern Folklife Collection (SFC) at the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina, I am looking at the ways SFC responds to these functions and the ways SFC challenges and is challenged by them.

An important archival resource, the SFC was officially established in 1986 (opened in 1989), but the synergy of SFC's establishment dates back at least to 1968, if not further to the 1940s when the Curriculum in Folklore was established at the University of North Carolina. According to SFC's website, "the SFC is especially rich in materials documenting the emergence of old-time, country-western, hillbilly, bluegrass, blues, gospel, Cajun and zydeco musics. There is also extensive documentation of the folk revival movement reflecting the tremendous interest in traditional music that has blossomed since the late 1950s." Today the collection encompasses a massive aggregation of sound recordings, moving images, photographs, song folios, manuscripts, posters, and reference materials that document traditional and vernacular music, art, and culture related to the American South.

The collection is housed within the renowned library system of the University of North Carolina (UNC). It is a non-circulating collection. Researchers at UNC can access the collection physically via traditional avenues, including UNC 's OPAC (online public access catalog), finding aids (hosted online at UNC), and in-house databases located only on the premises of the SFC; or the knowledgeable staff of the SFC can guide them through the collections. But what if one comes to SFC through the Internet? What does the SFC's online presence provide?

At first glance, the SFC web presence is typical of special collections within larger university libraries, including a search engine relationship to the library's OPAC, a list of online finding aids, a few online presentations of curated collections, reference resources for researchers, and navigational links to the main library's other pages.

As a framework for extending beyond the first glance, I framed the SFC's web presence in light of my proposed four functions: informational, discoverable, accessible, and interactive.

Informational

The SFC does what libraries and archives do well: provide directions to researchers and other potential visitors about using the collections and the library in general. The site includes answers to frequently asked questions; information about how to donate and support the library; contact information for SFC staff and instructions for doing research at the SFC and UNC in general; links to related sites of interest; links to publications related to the SFC; and information about the location and operational hours of the library. There is also a concise history of the SFC and the extent of its collections.

Discoverable

Discoverability is a key concept for libraries and archives. How can external researchers discover the resources that exist in a given repository? A web presence is a prime solution for this need. The OPAC (online public access catalog) is a standard resource of discoverability for libraries. Due to the bibliographic history of OPACs, archival resources are often absent from the catalog. Evidence of this exists on the SFC website, where an embedded Google search box offers a convoluted search of web pages on the Manuscript Department's website, but there is no direct search of UNC's OPAC. Instead, and aside from the Google search box, the SFC offers silos of discoverability to its collections...