LIBRARY NOTES
Acquisitions Department
A Visit with Acquisitions
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The mission of the Acquisitions Department is to acquire a balance of books that are popular with our members, and to add to our collection highquality titles that will continue to be used for decades to come - books that will educate, entertain, and, we hope, enlighten our patrons through the years. Needless to say, few books satisfy both needs.
To meet our goal, we regularly examine a wide variety of book reviews in U.S and U.K. periodicals and newspapers: Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, TheTimes Literary Supplement, The Spectator, The New York Times Book Review, Literary Review, and many more. Publisher's catalogs and electronic mailing lists keep us abreast of new titles. Although most additions to the collection are published within the year of acquisition, useful titles from the past are found in bibliographies, requests, and references in book reviews.
Members do their part to keep the department on its toes; between fifteen and forty request slips are sent up to our office every week. We also receive an increasing number of requests electronically, since members can now request books via our online catalog by clicking on Suggest a Purchase and filling out a form. All member requests are individually evaluated, and while we cannot buy all of them, we are pleased to say that we do purchase the majority of member- requested books.
Additional purchases originate with the Library's Book Committee, who recommend books in a variety of subject areas at their monthly meetings.
A set of critical questions is always in mind when staffers are evaluating a title:
- How many members have requested this title?
- What does this book's content add to our collection compared with our current holdings on the subject?
- Is this book appropriate for an educated general audience like ours, or intended by a specialist for other specialists familiar with the latest academic theories and jargon?
- Is the book relevant to our members and Library tradition?
- For a work of popular or genre fiction: how did this writer's last three books do with our readers? Are they maintaining their popularity, or has their audience moved on?
- For a first novel: are the reviews strong enough to justify taking a chance?
To see a sampling of recently acquired books, take a look at the monthly New Books list compiled by the Acquisitions Department. Print copies are available throughout the building.
And please keep those requests pouring in.
Some Statistics:
| 275,232: | number of new and revised titles published by traditional production methods in the United States in 2008.
| | 120,947: | number in the U.K.
| | 5,212: | total items acquired, including duplicate copies and replacements
| | 4,500: | net total of titles added to the Library's collections in 2008 (those with a permanent home in our stacks)
| | 984: | number of gift books accessioned in 2008
| | 356: | number of Children's Library books added in 2008
| | 64: | number of titles added to the reference collection in 2008
| | 58: | number of audiobooks added to the collection in 2008
| | 19: | percentage of titles added in 2008 that were new fiction, including mysteries and short-story collection.
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The broad subject areas cataloged the most were history and travel; literature and criticism, poetry, and drama; social sciences; arts; and biography.
Acquisitions Department:
Steven McGuirl, Head of Acquisitions
Carolyn Waters, Acquisitions and Reference Librarian
Janet Howard, Acquisitions Assistant/Circulation Assistant
Jules Cohn, Acquisitions Volunteer
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