2018 Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference

Over the course of twenty years the Library Company of Philadelphia published a total of sixty online exhibitions, its first being Ardent Spirits in 1999. What started as simply a way to share a short-lived gallery exhibition more broadly later evolved into a key marketing piece of the exhibition lifecycle. Today, online exhibitions are brought into the fold of all that is digital in the library. An ecosystem of digital life has emerged with each collection item featured in an online exhibition being linked to subject guides, blog posts, social media, and the digital asset repository.  Online exhibitions are the library’s historical record of how web design, accessibility, digitization, content management, and user experience have changed over the last two decades.  As we look towards the future, we must consider the implications of both changes in technology and user expectations. Fundamental issues surrounding preservation, sustainability, and emulation must be strategically planned for both new and existing resources. Creative methods of measuring impact, beyond standard web analytics, need to be devised showing a return on investment to guarantee continued funding.        

Providing and preserving digital content is now a ubiquitous part of librarianship. The Library Company hopes their decades of experience, both positive and negative, can inform others as they increase their footprint in this area of collections management.