Collecting Campus Culture: Collaborations and Collisions

From the 2007 implementation of Illinois Wesleyan University’s institutional repository (IR), an archivist and special collections librarian and a scholarly communications librarian have worked on its development and expansion from each position’s unique perspective. They have found themselves united on some fronts, but divided at times on big picture questions such as the definition of campus culture and the extent to which the IR should contain products of that culture, how best to describe and structure collections, and who should be responsible for certain collections. Through regular dialogue on these concerns and efforts to understand each other’s perspective, the colleagues’ joint interest in promoting and preserving a broad history of campus culture is being achieved. Examples of how these issues are navigated, recommendations for realizing similar outcomes, and insights into the work remaining are provided.