B. Support
1. Cataloging -- Awareness of the collections
in the scholarly community will be fostered by
cataloguing collections in MARC format according to
international standards, and making those electronic
records available through the Library's Online
Public Access Catalogue (OPAC); through
international online bibliographic databases such as
RLIN; through online manuscript collection databases
such as The National Union Catalog of Manuscript
Collections (NUCMC), the National Inventory of
Documentary Sources (NIDS), and Archives USA which are
widely available to researchers.
2. Preservation and Security -- Crucial to the
ongoing operation of the Library of the Grolier Club
is the preservation of research materials. Collections
are housed in a temperature and humidity controlled
environment, and are protected by fire detection and
suppression systems. The collections are
non-circulating, and rare materials are maintained in
locked, key-controlled storage areas. Photography and
photocopying are allowed only at the discretion of the
Librarian. Security measures include a live-in House
Manager, an alarm system monitored by the New York
City Police Department, and a closed-circuit video
surveillance system.
3. Acquisitions -- The Library acquires materials
through purchase and donation. It does not generally
accept materials on loan or deposit, except with the
understanding that such materials will be donated
outright at a later date. Purchases are financed by
income from endowment funds, from cash donations, and
from the occasional sale of duplicate and out-of-scope
materials (see VII. below). Donations of materials and
funds are essential to the maintenance and development
of the collections, and the support of donors is
consistently sought. Grant funding for special
projects is sought when such projects do not diminish
the level of routine care and service of the
collections, and when they can contribute
substantially to the acquisition, arrangement and
description, or servicing of the
collections.
IV. Priorities and Limitations of the Collection: The
Library's strengths and collecting levels are outlined
below. Because of limited funding, collecting is selective
in all areas.
A. Present Collections Strengths -- The Library
is strongest in the areas of bookselling and book
collecting: bookseller and book auction catalogues;
catalogues of private libraries, printed and manuscript;
and archives documenting the activities of book
collectors and the antiquarian book trade. The Library is
also strong in institutional library catalogues, author
and subject bibliographies, type specimens, printing
histories and manuals, and examples of printing from the
incunable period through the modern era. Geographically,
the collections focus generally on materials documenting
English and American book collecting, with a strong
secondary emphasis on France, particularly French
bookseller and book auction catalogues.
B. Present Collecting Levels --
1. Subjects and Genres: The Library collects
current and historical materials in the following
areas, and generally in this order of priority:
monographs and reference works on the book arts;
catalogues of the major American and European
antiquarian book sellers and auction houses, with an
emphasis on catalogues of important collections, and
particularly those annotated with buyers' names or
having other significant provenance; private library
catalogues, printed or in manuscript, and particularly
those documenting important American, English and
Western European collections and collectors; subject
and author bibliographies, with an emphasis on
descriptive rather than enumerative lists; library
histories; histories of publishing firms; catalogues
raisonnés of book artists; histories of
printing, printing manuals, and type specimens;
catalogues of book exhibitions. More selectively, the
Library acquires examples of book making from the
manuscript era to the present, with emphasis on fine
printing of the 19th and 20th centuries (but see V.
below), miniature books, and representative examples
of bindings; prints and other works on paper with a
bookish theme; bookplates, bookseller trade-cards and
other book-related ephemera; and works by Grolier Club
members on non-bookish subjects. The Library maintains
the official records of the Grolier Club, and may
selectively acquire the archives of other bookish
organizations, as well as the papers of Grolier Club
members and others notable in the book arts (but see
V. below).
2. Forms of Material: The Library is an integrated
collection that acquires materials in most formats,
including monographs, serials, manuscripts, archives,
photographs, pamphlets, audio-visual materials,
microforms, prints and other works on paper,
machine-readable records (online and CD-ROM), and
selected memorabilia.
C. Present Identified Weaknesses -- Due to past levels
of funding and staffing, acquisition of general
bibliographical literature published between 1947-1980
has not been consistent. Although lacunae are being
identified and filled as opportunity arises, the Library
still lacks a number of important recent bibliographical
"monuments", such as the Verzeichnis der im deutschen
Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 16.[-17.]
Jahrhunderts (VD16 and VD17), and the Censimento
delle edizioni italiane del XVI secolo (EDIT16). The
Library is also generally weak in monographs and
reference works relating to medieval manuscripts (but see
V. below).
D. Exclusions -- Within the very broad category of
books-about-books, the Library will generally not accept
the following: belles-lettres; biographies and collected
correspondence of authors and artists which lack a strong
bibliographical component or focus; works on the
sociological or political aspects of reading; facsimiles
of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books
(except for representative examples already in the
collection, or occasional gifts hereafter accepted at the
discretion of the Director or Librarian); archival
collections of organizations not having primarily a
bibliographical or bibliophilic focus, or archives of
active organizations unable to provide financial support
for ongoing processing and maintenance.
E. Desired Level of Collecting -- The Library will
collect in strength all materials that pertain to the
production, sale, and collecting of books, as specified
in IV.B. and IV.C. above. Due to funding, staffing and
space restraints, collecting must be selective.
V. Cooperative Agreements Affecting the Collection
Policy: No formal cooperative agreements with other
libraries are in effect. However, the Library recognizes
that other institutions collect in the same or overlapping
areas, i.e., the Morgan Library for illuminated manuscript
reference material; Columbia University for the textual
study of medieval and renaissance manuscripts; the New York
Public Library for private press books, livres d'artiste and
artists' books; and Columbia University and the New-York
Historical Society for archives of New York area printers,
publishers, booksellers, collectors, etc. It also recognizes
that those institutions will seek to acquire the same unique
resources for their own collections, and may have prior
claim on such materials or be a more appropriate repository
to house them. Opportunities to acquire such materials, as
well as those not covered by the Library's collecting
policy, will be referred to an appropriate repository. In
cases where the legitimate collecting interests of the
Library and another repository directly conflict, the
Library will use the best interests of the scholarly
community as a criterion in pursuing a resolution.
VI. Statement of Resource Sharing Policy: The Library
will consider requests to photograph, photocopy or otherwise
reproduce materials for inclusion in another repository,
subject to specific limitations imposed by the terms of
acquisition, and at the discretion of the
Librarian.
VII. Statement of Deaccessioning Policy: Duplicates,
materials that do not reflect the collecting areas of the
Library, or materials donated for sale to benefit the
Library, may be deaccessioned and disposed of at auction,
sold to a bookdealer, or offered to the membership in the
context of a Library sponsored book sale, as may be decided
by the Library Committee. Deaccessioned materials may also
be offered to another more appropriate institution, to the
donor, or to the donor's family.
VIII. Procedures Affecting Collecting Policy:
A. Deed of Gift -- The Library will not accept
materials without a legal transfer of title, deed of gift
or deposit, or other official acknowledgement.
B. Loans and Deposits -- Materials loaned to or
deposited with the Library will be accepted only in
extraordinary circumstances and only with the commitment
that the materials will be donated outright at a later
date. If materials are deposited or loaned, the Library
reserves the right to include in any deposit agreement
provisions for recovering the processing and storage
costs for materials that are later returned to the
depositor.
C. Closed Collections -- The Library will not accept
collections of materials that are closed to public access
in perpetuity.
D. Deaccessioning -- The Library reserves the right to
deaccession any materials within its collections, subject
to donors' terms of acquisition, and notification of the
donor and his/her heirs.
E. Exhibitions -- The Library reserves the right to
include unrestricted materials in exhibitions, in
accordance with normally accepted archival principles and
practices.
IX. Procedures for Monitoring Development and Reviewing
Collection Development Guidelines: This collecting policy is
designed to meet the needs and goals of the Library of the
Grolier Club. In order to determine the effectiveness of the
collecting policy, this document will be reviewed every five
years by the Director, the Librarian, and such members of
the Library Committee as the chair of that committee shall
see fit to appoint, and the policy will be re-evaluated and
amended as that committee shall decide.
_______________________________
November 1999; rev. May 2005
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