Jean Outland Chrysler Art Library Blog: A View From the Stacks: Kersti's Journal Week 4

Friday, September 2, 2011

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

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 the library builds its collection and deals with acquisitions. One thing I’ve noticed while I’m here is the library gets a LOT of book donations. All of the books are interesting, but the library’s limited space and scope means that some 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 the museum’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 about Chrysler Museum collections.

· Provide resources, reference service, and collections management services to enable all museum activities including study, care and interpretation of Chrysler Museum collections.

· Provide the public with intellectual and physical access to arts-related information through communication and sharing of a wide variety of available resources.

Part of my job this week was to determine if some of the recent acquisitions could be included in the collection. This task was surprisingly difficult; for the assignment I picked a book of architecture, a book about one artist’s focus on American folk art, and a glossy book of recipes. Surprisingly, I had to determine that none of them could be included. The book of folk art was a duplicate of what we already had in the collection; the book of architecture was a “lookbook”, almost an advertisement, for an architectural firm, and perhaps less startlingly, the cookbook was entirely outside of the library’s focus. I also needed to come up with some suggestions of how to deal with those books the library is unable to retain and must deaccession. This, too, proved tricky. My first thought was to donate them, but many organizations that accept book donations have very specific guidelines for what they will and won’t accept- one organization wouldn’t accept anything older than a decade! A sale could work, but would be difficult to organize. I even found that many people use old books to make items like lamps or other pieces of art.

The end of the week was devoted towards something that others have already blogged about…. Making our bookcart! Sarah, Jamie, and I tossed around a lot of ideas, but finally decided on the pirate ship from Muppet Treasure Island, one of my all-time favorite movies. We're keeping our fingers crossed...