Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Gift Book Meditations

How is it possible that we no longer have any copies of Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer? Luckily, here is a donated copy. It's a paperback and a little worn, but we need it. What about C. Wright Mills' 1956 classic, The Power Elite? Boy, the chapter titles sure still seem pertinent. But if we put it in the collection, would anyone check it out?
       Here is Social Contract, a paperback containing writings by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Are all these pieces in other books we own, or should this go in the collection? Here is a reproduction edition of Randolph B. Marcy's 1859 The Prairie Traveller : A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions. We have the original in the reference cases in the Southwest Room. Would anyone want to actually check this one out?
       Patrick J. Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong; David Biro, One Hundred Days : My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient; Paul Bowles, A Distant Episode : The Selected Stories; Henry Petroski, Small Things Considered : Why There Is No Perfect Design (what? a Petroski title we don't own?); Lillian Too, Essential Feng Shui. ? ? ? ? ? Yes yes yes yes yes. We can't give you links to these in the catalog yet, because we've only just sent them down to be processed. But they will be in the catalog soon.
       So far this month we have added 785 donated items to our collection. The ones we get very excited about are the added copies of the books with the most holds on them, since it speeds up the waiting list and makes more people happier sooner. Donate one of those and it will get into the collection so fast the keyboard will practically be smoking. But in addition, and all the time, people are donating books that we don't have at all, and which broaden the collection. So far this month, 263 titles have been added to the catalog through the donated books. Absent the gift, we wouldn't own it. Thank you very much.

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