What does it mean to truly look closely? This year’s VRA annual conference, Zooming In, invites visual resources professionals to shift from the wide view and settle into the details, the workflows, tools, discoveries, and community conversations that define our day-to-day practice.
Delivered fully online, VRA 2026 brings together a rich program drawn from 40+ proposals spanning panels, lightning talks, virtual tours, and more. Whether you’re navigating new roles in your institution, exploring how AI is reshaping cataloging and metadata work, grappling with collection development decisions, or finding new ways to activate and engage communities through visual collections, there’s a session built for where you are right now.
This year’s program reflects both the breadth and the depth of our field: from digitizing ancient scrolls to first-time service management, from reparative description to classroom pedagogy, and interactive digital maps. It’s a conference for asking: what happens when we look more carefully?
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This session brings together three case studies on the practical and technical challenges of digitizing rare, fragile, and unusually formatted materials — from combustible nitrate film to century-old newspapers to oversized scrolls. A joint Q&A will follow.
Nitrates: Now or Never Svea Elisha, Duke University Libraries Duke University Libraries is coming to the end of a multi-year Nitrate Digitization Initiative. This presentation explains how the project was tackled, the challenges faced along the way, and insights that may inform how other institutions approach digitizing nitrates from their own collections.
Fragile Fragments: Digitizing Original Early 20th-Century Newspapers for Preservation and Access Sami Wright O'Connell, Boston University Libraries, Digital Ventures Digitization can preserve rare, degrading materials while enabling access. This talk details Digital Ventures' work digitizing nearly 100 fragile issues of The Guardian, Boston's early 20th-century African American newspaper, covering condition challenges, conservation-informed handling, imaging strategies, and quality control practices that balance preservation risks with sustainable digital access.
A 30-Foot Road Trip: Digitization of the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō Scrolls and Other Emaki Matthew Carissimi, The Ohio State University Libraries Ohio State's digitization of four proto-Manga handscrolls in 2022 led to expanded interest and digitization in 2025. This session covers workflows for continuous-format materials, getting creative with limited space, and cross-departmental collaboration — with practical strategies for precision alignment for stitching, handling oversized items, and managing 4GB+ files.
