In May our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 892 items to the rare books, University Archives, and Center for Restoration Studies collections.  Most supplemented the books, periodicals (bound and unbound), and A/V subsets within the Restoration collection.  The University Archive grew by a few, but ACU Authors and Taylor Hymnal collections received many new items, with 90 and 108 additions respectively.  Some of the additions are newly published, others are new-to-us, and still others represent a second copy or a new-to-us edition or printing.  You’ll notice this is another month of significant additions.  For the past few months our student workers and I worked through a backlog of gift books.  At about the same time Technical Services had some additional availability after closing out a few projects of their own.  And, with the academic and fiscal year winding down, book purchasing for the circulating collection paused.  All that means some additional time became available to tackle our backlog.  Even with 1600+ items now shelved since April, we still have a full queue that will last us through the summer.  The short version is the quality and scope of the collection will grow in some significant areas over the summer.

Abilene Christian College. Prickly Pear, Yearbook of Abilene Christian College, 1952, yearbook, 1952; Abilene, Texas. University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.

Our goal is to build a comprehensive research-level collection of print materials by, for, and about the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.  But beyond assembly and preservation, a collection should be discoverable by those who need the information.  Collecting and preserving is only part of our task; those objects must be described and made available.  Thanks to the close and careful work of our colleagues upstairs, who describe our holdings, these materials are now discoverable. By discoverable I mean a patron can utilize our online catalog (such as by searching by author, or title, or subject) to find these materials.

892 new items…cataloged, shelved, and ready for research:  Continue reading →

In April our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 766 items to the rare books, University Archives, and Center for Restoration Studies collections.  All but a handful of them supplemented the books, periodicals (bound and unbound), and A/V subsets within the Restoration collection.  The University Archive, ACU Authors and Taylor Hymnal collections also received a few new items.  Some of the additions are newly published, others are new-to-us, and still others represent a second copy or a new-to-us edition or printing.  You’ll notice this is quite a bit more items compared to recent months.  For the past several weeks our student workers and I worked through a backlog of gift books.  At about the same time Technical Services had some additional availability after closing out a few projects of their own.  And, with the academic and fiscal year winding down, book purchasing for the circulating collection paused.  All that means some additional time became available to tackle our backlog.  Even with 700+ items now shelved from April, we still have a full queue that will last us through the summer.  The short version is the quality and scope of the collection will grow in some significant areas over the summer.

Abilene Christian College. Prickly Pear, Yearbook of Abilene Christian College, 1952, yearbook, 1952; Abilene, Texas. University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.

Our goal is to build a comprehensive research-level collection of print materials by, for, and about the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.  But beyond assembly and preservation, a collection should be discoverable by those who need the information.  Collecting and preserving is only part of our task; those objects must be described and made available.  Thanks to the close and careful work of our colleagues upstairs, who describe our holdings, these materials are now discoverable. By discoverable I mean a patron can utilize our online catalog (such as by searching by author, or title, or subject) to find these materials.

766 new items…cataloged, shelved, and ready for research:  Continue reading →