A View From the Stacks: Kersti's Journal Week 4

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Our Library Interns have headed off for the summer. They are missed and certainly not forgotten. They've left us with some great journal entries written during the course of the summer. I hope you'll enjoy reading about their adventures and efforts over the next few weeks. - L. C.

Week 4- Collections Development and Management 
This week I focused on how thelibrary builds its collection and deals with acquisitions. One thing I’venoticed while I’m here is the library gets a LOT of book donations. All of thebooks are interesting, but the library’s limited space and scope means thatsome of them can’t be added to the stacks. As I mentioned in an earlier entry,the library focuses first and foremost on subjects related to objects in themuseum’s collection. If a text can’t be tied into the library’s scope some way,it needs to be deaccessioned.

The Library’s Goals (from the Collections Development Policy)
·        Provide a primary source of information for the public aboutChrysler Museum collections.
·        Provide resources, reference service, and collections managementservices to enable all museum activities including study, care andinterpretation of Chrysler Museum collections.
·        Provide the public with intellectual and physical access toarts-related information through communication and sharing of a wide variety ofavailable resources.
Part of my job this week was todetermine if some of the recent acquisitions could be included in thecollection. This task was surprisingly difficult; for the assignment I picked abook of architecture, a book about one artist’s focus on American folk art, anda glossy book of recipes. Surprisingly, I had to determine that none of themcould be included. The book of folk art was a duplicate of what we already hadin the collection; the book of architecture was a “lookbook”, almost anadvertisement, for an architectural firm, and perhaps less startlingly, thecookbook was entirely outside of the library’s focus. I also needed to come upwith some suggestions of how to deal with those books the library is unable to retainand must deaccession. This, too, proved tricky. My first thought was to donatethem, but many organizations that accept book donations have very specificguidelines for what they will and won’t accept- one organization wouldn’taccept anything older than a decade! A sale could work, but would be difficultto organize. I even found that many people use old books to make items likelamps or other pieces of art.
The end of the week was devotedtowards something that others have already blogged about…. Making our bookcart!Sarah, Jamie, and I tossed around a lot of ideas, but finally decided on thepirate ship from Muppet Treasure Island, one of my all-time favorite movies.We're keeping our fingers crossed...

The Intern Submission to the 2011 Book Cart Contest:  The Hispanola

The Intern Submission to the 2011 Book Cart Contest: The Hispanola

The Intern Submission to the 2011 Book Cart Contest: The Hispanola

 - Kersti Francis, Summer 2011  Library Intern As you may already know, the intern's Book Cart Contest submission, the Hispanola sailed into second place in our annual competition.