The recent proliferation of Aeon implementations has taken place during a time when many libraries and archives have experienced a decrease in resources even as we strive to increase efforts towards outreach, discovery, digitization, and instruction. Aeon's tailored functionality has given us a specialized tool to manage these activities and many more. Equally important, this software enabled many of us to more efficiently collect data about this work, which has become increasingly important in the prevailing culture of assessment at many of our institutions.
But what’s next? What can/should we be doing with this data? How can, or should, it influence our approaches to not only conflicting priorities and complexities in our service operations, but also security, cataloging, collection development, assessment, and outreach? How do professional concerns around privacy,preservation, and staffing resist such influence, and where might it be appropriate to push on these concerns? How has the advent of "unmediated" requesting changed our relationships with our users?
We aim in this session to explore how the area of special collections public services is evolving, and to question how Aeon and similar systems serve us in meeting the changing needs of our remote and onsite patrons.
Speakers: Kate Hutchens, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan and Moira Fitzgerald, Yale University Library.