Too fragile to use?

What happens when a student doing a research project needs to use fragile, rare, and valuable materials from our special collections? Thanks to the magic of digitization, we can provide them with access to these materials without harm to the originals. Sometimes we need to scan the item ourselves, but frequently Google Books or the Internet Archive has already digitized the book. In this case, all we need to do is add a link from our online library catalog to the full-text version of the book. For example, a senior recently requested the use of James Pike’s “The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government”. When the book was retrieved from the special collections, we noticed that the first twenty or so pages had broken off from the text block. The student looked through the book very carefully, but it became apparent that the book was too fragile for use. Fortunately, Tim Sprattler, who is in charge of the special collections, was able to find a link at Internet Archive and has added it to the library catalog record. The result was a happy student, and a book that did not sustain further damage.
Here is what the record looks like.