From Tactile to Digital: Translating Complex Physical Collections Through Digitization and Description

This case study explores play-based approaches to digitization as innovative strategies for enhancing user engagement with special collections. The article discusses how traditional digitization often fails to capture the tactile nature of physical archives, especially three-dimensional objects. The authors, librarians at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library, discuss how they incorporated aspects of play into the curation, digitization, and description of physical collections. They outline their approach as illustrated in the creation of digital collections for the Historical Board Games, the Gwendolyn Brooks Collection, and the Ricker Materials Collections. Incorporating play and experimentation further promotes the discovery and use of materials beyond traditional methods of physical access.