ter Woerds abstract 2008
Numismatic libraries and the exchange of information
After a short introduction about the library of the Money Museum in Utrecht, its history and collections, and the developments for the near future, I will focus on ways to co-operate between the international numismatic libraries. How can we stimulate a better and more efficient way to exchange information, both among ourselves as towards our customers? Quite often the numismatic libraries are ‘loners’ in their countries due to their specific collection; they are small, don’t have much money and/or staff and could benefit from more international co-operation with libraries of the same kind.
I would like to use this conference to propose the formation of an ‘International Numismatic Libraries’ Group’. Main goal is to exchange ideas and information, and to co-operate in different projects. There are lots of ideas. One of them is to create a numismatic digital portal, a ‘one-stop-shop’ where our customers can find all (numismatic) information they need. We can make our catalogues available there (searchable with a federative search engine), we can link relevant websites, digital publications,
etc. We even can make it an interactive platform for the exchange of information and knowledge. Another idea is to start a ‘numispedia’, a wikipedia on numismatic topics. And of course there is the exchange of publications, coordination of collection development, a numismatic thesaurus, etc. etc.