The ARL Special Collections Initiative

In November 2001, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced the formation of a Task Force on Special Collections charged with developing an action plan to address a set of issues deemed significant by the ARL Board and membership. The establishment of the task force followed several years of ARL interest and activity in the area of special collections. This paper will review the stages through which ARL’s engagement with special collections evolved, describe the motivation and rationale for initiating this engagement, discuss the perspectives that ARL brings to special collections, and provide a status report on the work of the task force.