In August our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 341 items to Special Collections holdings.  Nearly all fed into the main print collection (which we call REST), with only a few items going into ACU Authors and ACU Archive collections plus a couple of hymnals into the Taylor collection. We added catalog records for three new archival collections.  As has been the case for several steady months, most of the additions to REST are tracts and pamphlets.  The tract project continues at a very good pace and we will have a fine set of tracts, all cataloged, when this project is complete. The current count for this collection is just over 5,200 titles, with many titles represented by multiple copies. There are probably above 7,000 items already cataloged.  As usual, we added a few monographs which we either lacked altogether, or lacked in some variant of the edition or printing.  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.  Technical Services looks fantastic, with fresh paint and carpet, and in spite of the renovations they worked hard to keep things moving through the pipeline.  With that behind us, now we will see some progress on additional projects with the usual cartloads of old books I send their way.  I will have the first update on those projects next month.

Callie Faye Milliken (Special Collections Librarian) and Dr. John Stevens (President) at the beginning of the transfer of books from the ‘old’ library in Chambers Hall to the ‘new’ Brown Library. Dr. Stevens, holding a rare copy of Biblia Sacra, led a procession of students and faculty carrying volumes into the new facility. From https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth597528/?q=books

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.

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