Proposal title: Creating a Community for the Cultural Record: Using Social Software in Special Collections Amelia Abreu Archivist and History Subject Specialist, University of Houston Libraries AIM: ameliaabreuInstitutional Blogs:Special Collections Weblog: http://weblogs.lib.uh.edu/weblogs/speccol/History Weblog: http://weblogs.lib.uh.edu/weblogs/history/Biographical Information: Amelia Abreu works as an Archivist and History Subject Librarian at University of Houston. Her interests are in examining new ways of facilitating access to materials and rethinking users in the context of special collections. She is a graduate of the I School at the University of Texas-Austin and the Evergreen State College. Abstract: What if archives and special collections could use social software to communicate with potential users and provide better and more relevant access to our collections? What if we could create tools that recorded our "institutional memory" and collected the incidental knowledge and experiences of researchers and staff? Archivists, rare books librarians and their users have just begun to use social software to reach their users. Special Collections are launching blogs, researchers now blog about their experiences in archives, and historical photographs and rare books are now being annotated online. Institutions have begun to use social software internally as well, by building wiki reference pages and creating prototypes for a "next generation" of finding aids which incorporate user comments and tagging. We're even hearing rumblings about how OPACs and online directories might change to better describe our materials. This presentation will give an overview of noteworthy projects using social software across the Special Collections, rare books and archives world. We will show (and tell) how collections can build awareness and engage their communities with these tools. In turn, we will discuss possible directions: ways in which users can create communities of knowledge, and strategies for librarians and archivists to use user generated content to create better access tools. The program will be geared towards all who deal with or are interested in rare and historical materials, from public and special librarians who hold special collections and "lone arrangers" with limited technology resources to those working in large special collections libraries. Less