MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: DIGITAL COLLECTIONS AND CURATION AT NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE LIBRARIES [PRESENTATION]

Abstract

Special Collections at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Libraries was established in 2016 with the mission to digitally showcase the many rare and distinctive titles in the NUS Libraries that until now have remained hidden in its large store of materials. Our vision is to be the research hub for Southeast Asian resources. Therefore, we are particularly focusing on digitizing materials on Singapore and Southeast Asia, which include our Singapore-Malaysia Collection, Southeast Asian Chinese Collection, Rare Books Collection and Private Papers Collection.

Digital Gems (https://digitalgems.nus.edu.sg/ ) is the result of our ongoing effort to showcase our unique and rare materials via open access. By putting these resources online for easy access, we hope researchers will use them in new ways to develop new ideas and projects in their various fields of study.

This presentation will introduce our digitization program and selected collections in Digital Gems. It will highlight our accelerated efforts in digitizing historical sources on Southeast Asia as well as our latest collaborations with researchers and institutions in expanding our digital collections. Our active data-sharing effort to local and international repositories to expose our digital collections to researchers will also be covered in this presentation.