Dear ARLIS,
I have a question about how you approach acquisition and circulation of
limited edition, non-traditional format artists books. At LMU, we do not
have a dedicated art library, so when faculty order artists books that
aren't of a traditional format, are typically expensive, and/or are
printed in limited edition runs, the only two options we have are to: a)
put the book on the shelves in our circulating collection and hope that
users will be nice, or b) house the book in archives & special
collections.
We do not yet have a dedicated section of our collection development
policy for handling these materials, so we tend to deal with them on a
case by case basis, contacting the faculty member who requested the book
(and often learning that they didn't realize the odd format or expense
of the title they were ordering), and asking them if they prefer that
the book resides in our main stacks or in special collections.
Neither of these are optimal solutions, so I am writing to see if there
are any libraries out there that have been faced with a similar dilemma,
and ask for advice, either as to a specific collection development
policy for these materials, or faculty education (so they can understand
exactly what it is that they're ordering), or any other solutions to
working with these types of books.
Many thanks!
Jamie Hazlitt
Reference Librarian
Von Der Ahe Library
Loyola Marymount University
310 338 5234
www.lmu.edu/library
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