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Purpose To describe how academic libraries can support digital humanities (DH) research by leveraging established library values and strengths to provide support for preservation and access and physical and digital spaces for researchers and communities, specifically focused on cultural heritage collections. Design/methodology/approach The experiences of the authors in collaborating with DH scholars and community organizations is discussed with references to the literature. The paper suggests how research libraries can use existing expertise and infrastructure to support the development of digital cultural heritage collections and DH research. Findings Developing working collaborations with DH researchers and community organizations is a productive way to engage in impactful cultural heritage digital projects. It can aid resource allocation decisions to support active research, strategic goals, community needs and the development and preservation of unique, locally relevant collections. Libraries do not need to radically transform themselves to do this work, they have established strengths that can be effective in meeting the challenges of DH research. Practical implications Academic libraries should strategically direct the work they already excel at to support DH research and work with scholars and communities to build collections and infrastructure to support these initiatives. Originality/value The paper recommends practical approaches, supported by literature and local examples, that could be taken when building DH and community-engaged cultural heritage projects.

Different readers approach a text in different ways and for different reasons, so designers of interfaces for electronic reading and scholarship must strive for flexibility. Eric Gill’s illustrations for the Golden Cockerel Press invite exploration into the social function of erotic texts, public versus private reading, fine book-making practices, and more, and we hope to provide the tools to allow scholars to engage with these texts in their multiplicity. There may also be readers who just want to read the texts and look at the pictures, and we need to make sure we do not ignore their needs. Most importantly, there are, or will be, readers who want to interact with the texts in ways that we cannot imagine, and we need to do all we can to make this experimentation possible.

Archives & Special Collections acquired the complete image collection of Courtney Milne, a professional photographer whose worked encompassed documentary, abstract and fine art photographs. Among other material, the collection included over 500,000 original images both in slide and "born digital" format, easily double the total number of all other images held by the Archives at that time. From acquisition to digital curation, the authors, identify, outline, and discuss the various points at which key decisions were made in order to make this extensive collection available to the public both online and off. In particular, issues surrounding fine art photography and donor relations will be discussed.

Recent developments in scholarly publication and the new directions being pursued in both humanities departments and libraries in the production of digital content provide opportunity for scholars and libraries to explore new models for working together to produce and disseminate scholarly materials. We offer as a first step toward a model for publication the case of Opuscula: Short Texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (OSTMAR), a hybrid form of publication that leverages the university library infrastructure to create a platform for the publication of scholarly primary materials, an area of publication formerly reserved for the commercial press. This model is dependent on close collaboration between scholar and librarian, the nuances of which are outlined in this paper.