Most digital collections are organized thematically. Increasingly though, digital collections that appear to be organized thematically are actually digitized archival collections, and you'll find that it's helpful to know this before you begin exploring the collection, because with archival collections it's especially important to learn how the documents are organized before you begin using them.
Few digital collections have yet been created specifically around the theme of families. To find sources about families in digital collections, you'll need to do some creative thinking: what sorts of collections might contain documents related to your topic? What kinds of people or organizations might have created documents about your topic? Collections about social services and social groups will often will often include sources that document family life throughout history.
This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new windowMicroform collections tend to be one of two kinds: either thematic, or archival. Thematic microform collections are organized around a central theme, like women's history, American Indian history, history of madness, history of the American west, and so forth. Thematic collections will often include a mixture of published and unpublished sources, with greater emphasis on published sources. Archival microform collections are organized around provenance, which is to say the person or organization from which the documents came. In the case of archival microform collections, the person or organization from which the documents came is also very often the person or organization that produced the documents.
Print collections, in contrast, will be carefully selected compilations of reprinted primary sources.
Special collections bring together documents that share some common characteristic, such as rarity, format, subject, or provenance. Rare book libraries and archives are two common types of special collections.
Rare book libraries usually collect published sources, but may also collect manuscripts and other unpublished sources, especially literary manuscripts and manuscripts that relate to the library's rare book collections. Rare book libraries are usually organized like other libraries described in this guide, and are often attached to a research or academic library.
Archives, on the other hand, are organized quite differently than libraries. This difference is due to several factors, including the following:
Unlike library collections, which are organized by subject, archival collections are organized by provenance, and to whatever extent possible the archive will attempt "to maintain the integrity of records in relation to their documentary, provenancial, functional, and jurisdictional contexts",1 by ensuring that the documents remain organized the way they were organized at the time of their creation, or the time of their accession into the archive.
Other types of documents found in special collections include "maps, games, original works of art, realia (nonbook objects, such as furniture, weaponry, or locks of hair), textiles, audiovisual materials, and digital materials".2
Some examples of special collections at the University of Illinois Library:
Archives within driving distance:
Find more archival collections:
1. Joanne Evans, Sue McKemmish, and Barbara Reed, "Archival Arrangement and Description," in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 4th ed., ed. John D. McDonald and Michael Levine-Clark (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2017), 118.
2. Lynne M. Thomas, "Special Collections," in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 4th ed., ed. John D. McDonald and Michael Levine-Clark (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2017), 4335.
