Principles for Digitizing Special Collections

The Association of Research Libraries Board of Directors unanimously has adopted a set of nine principles to help university libraries in negotiations with publishers or other vendors over the digitization of special collections. The move comes as many libraries are looking for outside partners for such projects, but want to assure that these relationships are consistent with scholarly values. The principles cover such issues at the need for libraries to maintain their own copies of all materials, the need for as open access as possible to the digitized versions, and the need to protect the privacy of those who use digitized versions by limiting information that can be collected about them.