Dear ARLIS/NA Colleagues:

I wanted to follow up with you all on my query last week regarding identifying expensive, out-of-print books within a collection. Our goal at UW Bothell was to try to find a system or process for identifying these books in our collection and, while I did not discover a system or process, I did get some great information from you all that I think might be useful and that I'd like to share.

After synthesizing your responses, as well as some of the discussions that I've had with others, I've come up with a list of important takeaways:

1)      One librarian suggested, “ if I were systematically looking for titles that might be expensive to replace I'd start with any catalogue raisonne, any artists books, small press titles, and foreign titles.” And another librarian added that she looks for “very expensive and fragile items, high theft items (remember the Madonna book!), items primarily consisting of loose plates, and items with unusual binding.”

2)      Almost all of the libraries that responded indicated that they currently have a haphazard or piece-meal way of approaching this issue. And it seems like these expensive, out-of-print titles are most often identified during normal circulation.

3)      A few sites for looking up current costs of titles were mentioned: Bookfinder.com, Alibris, and Abe Books, BUT ...

4)      The price of out-of-print/rare books fluctuates wildly AND there seems to be some shenanigans going on with some sellers offering titles that they do not even have in stock at exorbitant prices and then turning around and quickly purchasing the title at a much lower cost from another bookseller when an order comes in. In other words, the prices being cited online may not represent "actual market value or replacement cost of a given book."

5)      A couple of sites for reporting stolen books were mentioned: ILAB: http://www.stolen-book.org/  and ABAA: http://hq.abaa.org/books/antiquarian/databases/stolen_search.html

6)      There is a difference between expensive out-of-print books and books that are rare, so that is something to keep in mind before sending things to a special collections unit. One librarian commented, “I tend to approach the collection with a different measure, which is by determining which books are truly rare or ‘medium-rare’. In order to do that, I search Worldcat to see how many copies exist and if they are available via ILL.”

7)      Finally, there was a comment that, “trying to catch all the things in an art library that go out of print, or needed to be sent to some more secure place, would be a full time job in itself.” I think the time consideration is really important when deciding whether or not to pursue a system for identifying these books ... ultimately the piece-meal approach may be the best when taking staff time into account.

I also briefly searched the literature to see if anything has been published on this topic, but I didn’t have much luck (if any of you are aware of relevant articles, I'd love it if you could pass those along).

Finally, based on your responses it is clear that this is a concern many libraries have, so more research into developing a systematic approach for identifying these items may be necessary.

All the best,