Hello All,
SO, here I am in a really tiny, overcrowded, busting at the seams art library. We have always been a non-circulating collection,of about 15,000 vols. I keep removing stuff so we can shelve new stuff. I am at the breaking point. We don’t have a ‘real’ circulation desk—my desk, which is all I have, is the entry point, or rather the obvious ‘person’ sitting on the floor. There is no door into the library-we are part of an open plan second floor.
Some of the art history faculty seem to be of a mind that circulating the collection will solve the space issue(it would be nice, but it will not work, as you no doubt know, since we can’t dictate a nice even amount of check out..i’ll be shifting til i die)_ and most of what is here, is exhibition catalogues, or larger format items with a lot of illustration. If something is predominantly text, and needs to be checked out for reading, I house it at the Main Library, where it is in a circulating collection.
My questions are these: How many of you have parts of your collections that do not circulate? How do the large format bindings hold up? How much extra recalling are you doing, so that multiple people can look at images?
Any information, related to my questions or not, will be hugely appreciated. The Meeting is on Friday, and I need back up!!!!!
Thanks,
Anne
Anne B. Haas
Art Librarian
Bowdoin College
9300 College Station
Brunswick, Maine 04011
[log in to unmask]