ALA/ACRL/Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) Preconference
"O Rare: Performance in Special Collections"

23 - 26 June 2013
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Potential topics for the conference include:

• Scholarly, research papers about materials, OR high-level work about libraries
• Case studies: studies of how things are done well at a library
• Reports, information exchange about collections and/or libraries

PRECONFERENCE THEME:
The preconference theme encompasses collections about and around the performing arts and the role of performance in special collections libraries and archives, from teaching to exhibitions. Libraries embody performance. Within our collections, we have innumerable performance and performing arts materials sought by researchers, straightforward or subtle. Bibliographers examine play octavos. Choreographers seek out historical dance notation. Historians of music shuffle through collections to examine musical manuscripts. In subtler ways, other collections document the history of magical performance, the nature of gender as performance, or even archival collections of the laboratory as performer within a network of actors. Our collections are inundated with documentation of performing arts and traces of the performance of activities.

Yet, libraries themselves are a center for performance. Teaching can be theatrical or even a historical recreation, while every modern administrator is interested in documenting the performance of processes and activities. We perform our duties using outreach on the radio, by assessing our collection development, or even performing roles within a parent organization. Without performance, a library is simply a horde of artifacts, devoid of meaning and purpose. The time has come to talk of many things: of theater, and dance, and musical arts; of laboratories and magic; and why an artifact has a trace; and whether digital facsimiles have wings.