This week I travelled to Melbourne for the Medieval Imagination exhibition opening and a number of related events. On Wednesday night I attended the Foxcroft lecture by Professor David McKitterick from Trinity College, University of Cambridge. I also organised meetings with Special collections staff at the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria.Interesting observations from many:
- All "Rare books" at SLV are housed in the one secure area including Australian pre-1850 and non-Australian pre-1800 items.
- SLV have been purchasing duplicate copies of novels by key twentieth century authors for the RB collections - and they don't remove the bookjackets.
- If SLV have duplicate copies of an item they nominate a preferred copy for issuing. Staff are trained to select the copy according to specific criteria eg. the copy with a Library binding rather than fine binding.
- Neither institutions have linked online database records to individual hardcopy records for rare printed books eg. EEBO.
- Both institutions place acid free strips in the volumes with location and barcode attached.
- Both institutions have dedicated staff to manage rare printed collections.
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2 comments:
Maggie,
I just wanted to say how much I like reading your blog. Not only is it a great example of how blogs can be used by our organisation but the content is also really interesting. I think it's a great communication tool for your project and I have learnt so much about our collections. Cheers
The delicious tag cloud is working really well - it would be great to have this feature on other blogs we might set up for library customers eg. genealogy or Australiana.
MJ
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