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Re: college archivists - a question



I am the Archivist at Albion College, a small private Methodist liberal arts school.  We are encountering the same difficulties here, with anything and everything that appears old or items that have continuously "disappeared" from the regular collections ending up in the overflowing rare books room.  We are in the process of creating a "medium-rare" storage area, where such items could be placed that do not require the special environmental conditions of the rare books room but for some other reason, bureaucratic or otherwise, are desired to be kept under lock and key.  The storage area will just be a caged-in section of the regular library stacks.
 
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Jennifer Thomas
Marilyn Crandell Schleg Archivist and Special Collections Librarian
United Methodist Church West Michigan Conference Archivist
Stockwell-Mudd Libraries
Albion College
602 E. Cass Street
Albion, MI 49224
Phone: 517-629-0487
Fax: 517-629-0504
E-Mail: jthomas@albion.edu
Internet: http://www.albion.edu/library/specialcollections
 
"For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck by palsy & all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, & let there be no surcease for his agony until he sink to dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment let the flames of hell consume him for ever &  aye."
 
(Attributed to the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona)


>>> "Nelson, Jamie" <alijn@AUGUSTANA.EDU> 04/12/01 02:22PM >>>

(apologies for cross-postings)

A question for my colleagues in small college archives:

We have materials in the general collection of the library that were acquired during the normal growth and daily life of a college library.  However, we occasionally have requests from faculty to move materials into Special Collections that aren't particularly rare but that they feel should be "protected."  In the latest case, an English professor would like to see selected bound volumes of "The Dial" and "Poetry" from the 1910s and 1920s removed to Special Collections because he feels the first printings of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot in journals are akin to first editions.

These materials are not within the scope of our collection in Special Collections.  We have severe space problems down here, and there are access issues as well with breaking a serial run and moving some volumes into the closed stacks.  Moreover, I do not want to set a precedent that we (Special Collections) accept anything in the general collection that appears to be "old."  Plenty of our materials are "old" - the College has been around for 140 years.

However, I sense that I will be charged as a poor custodian of such materials if I do not respond to his request.

How have others handled such materials in their general collections?  Any tips for responding to faculty about such requests? 

Thank you for your input.

Jamie Nelson

Jamie Nelson
Special Collections Librarian
Augustana College
Rock Island, Illinois