Collection Development Policy
Rare Book Collection

PROGRAMS AND CLIENTELE SUPPORTED:

Many segments of the university community, including the undergraduate and graduate students and faculty of all academic departments, the University Administration, the University Press, the University Archives, and others. Strengths in the Collection particularly attract individuals in the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Science. In addition researchers from around the country and the world may come here to use unique or unusual items in the collection.

SUBJECT LIBRARIAN:

Louis Jordan
Rare Book Liaison
Room 102, Hesburgh Library
(574) 631-3778
Jordan.1@nd.edu
FAX:  (574) 631-6772

GENERAL COLLECTING GUIDELINES:

Language:  Predominantly English, Latin, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Also other European languages, ancient Greek, and Arabic, Asian, and American Indian languages (selectively, as they relate to existing collections).

Chronological:  From the beginning of printing in 1455 to date. The arbitrary date for automatic inclusion in the Rare Book Collection is 1800 (the end of the hand-press period) for Europe as well as the United States.

Geographical:  Predominantly Western European and North and South American.

Treatment of subject:  Predominantly scholarly, but includes some juvenile and popular levels.

Types of material:  Predominantly printed books, but also broadsides and newspapers. Material that is rare, unusual, valuable, fragile, historically or literarily significant, or likely to be mutilated or stolen. Also material with fine or extraordinary bindings.

COLLECTING LEVELS:  

Because criteria for inclusion in the Rare Book Collection may depend as much on format as on content, NCIP ratings of Current Collecting Intensity from 1 to 5 are not easily applicable to the collection as a whole. The existence of the collection as a separate entity is due to preservation reasons more than to intellectual direction. However, purchases are made with the intention of enhancing certain areas of the collection. These are:

• History of printing and development of book arts.
• Specific private presses, including:
          Cuala Press
          Golden Cockerel
          Kelmscott
          Overbrook
          Pepler / St. Dominic / Hague & Gill
          Triamon / Blake
          Tragara
• Important editions in the history of science.
• Important editions by specific writers, including:
          John Buchan
          Rene Descartes
          Lord Dunsany
          Graham Greene
          Lafcadio Hearne
          William Butler Yeats
• Irish history and literature.
• A major 17th-century atlas to complement the Butler Collection of Maps of Ireland.
  
  

Purchases are also made to support research level collections in the various subject areas.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

Lacking a general fund for the purchase of rare books, the collection is not systematically developed. One exception is that rare books relating to orchids and of a topographical nature are purchased through a fund provided by Robert H. Gore, Jr. Otherwise the collection grows in four ways:

1. by occasional purchases by a subject librarian / liaison
2. by the recommendation of the Rare Book Librarian to the Director of Head of Collection Development
3. by donations
4. by transfers from the circulating collections

COORDINATION INFORMATION:

Potential acquisitions are called to the attention of subject librarians / liaisons. Potential gifts are directed to the Head of Collection Development or the Director. Actual gifts received through Gifts and Sales in Acquisitions are identified as potential rare book additions by the Head of Gifts and Sales, but ultimately decided on by the Rare Book Librarian. Transfers from the circulating collections may be instigated by the Rare Book Librarian or by subject librarians / liaisons. Potential additions or transfers for reasons of preservation also may be identified by the Head of Preservation.

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