On April 24, 2015 Harvard hosted a very interesting conference titled “University as Collector” at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (which, sadly, I was unable to attend personally). Video recordings for all of the sessions at this meeting are now available at:
http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2015-university-collector-conference
There are some fascinating materials here about ways in which various “collections” (in the broadest sense, certainly including but going beyond library or museum materials) amassed by Universities over time interact with institutional missions of teaching and research and can contribute to scholarship.
Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI