ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


Sep tem b er 1987 /  471

G u id elin es o n  th e se le c tio n  o f g e n e r a l 
c o lle c tio n  m a te r ia ls fo r  tr a n sfe r  to 
sp e c ia l c o lle c tio n s

B y  t h e  R B M S  A d  H o c  C o m m it te e  f o r  D e v e l o p i n g  T r a n s f e r  G u id e lin e s

Samuel A. Streit, Chair

The final version that has been submitted to the ALA 
Standards Committee for review.

M a n y  libraries intentionally acquire rare books, 

docum ents and m anuscripts, bu t virtually all li­
braries acquire books and docum ents w hich, w ith 
tim e and changing circumstances, and regardless 
of intention, become rare. Over tim e, they acquire 
a special cultural and historical value, and some­
times a significant financial value in the m arket 
place, as well. The following guidelines relate to li­
brarians’ responsibility to identify rare and valu­
able m aterials in general and open stack collections 
and to arrange for their transfer to the greater secu­
rity of special collections departm ents. *

These guidelines reflect tw o pervasive and un­
derlying conditions w hich influence both the for­
m ulation and the adm inistration of transfer policy: 
the identification of the rare and special, and the 
complex in teractio n  of lib rary  d ep artm en ts re­

*W hile some libraries have had a good experi­
ence w ith interm ediate, restricted access collec­
tions, others have not. The wisdom of w hether to 
form them  seems to depend on circumstances pecu­
liar to a p articu lar library and is not addressed in 
these guidelines. Note, however, th a t their use re­
quires policy decisions regarding w h at to transfer 
and how to do so w hich are parallel to those consid­
ered here.

quired to effect changes in the records by which 
readers are inform ed of the location of m aterials.

Transfer policies and procedures will vary from 
institution to institution, depending on staffing, 
physical setting, and use of the collections; these 
guidelines are w ritten to identify the general topics 
to be considered in an adequate transfer program .

The transfer policy
A successful transfer program  depends upon co­

operation and coordination at every level of the li­
b rary  organization. Both will be assisted considera­
bly by a w ritten policy statem ent. In developing 
the policy, it is essential to obtain the sanction of 
the lib ra ry ’s senior adm inistration. T he policy 
should be w ritten by those who are adm inistra­
tively responsible for the transfer program , usually 
the head of Special Collections, the Collection D e­
velopm ent Officer, or the tw o in concert. The de­
velopm ent of selection criteria and transfer proce­
dures depends upon wide agreem ent among, and 
m ust involve all relevant components of, the li­
brary: these will generally include Special Collec­
tions, Reference, C ataloging, Gifts, C irculation, 
P reserv atio n  an d  C ollection D evelop m en t and 
m ay include systems representatives in libraries un ­



472 /  C &R L  N ew s

dergoing autom ation.
The transfer policy must:
1. prom ulgate publicly the library’s definition 

of, and policy tow ard, rare and special collections, 
strongly justifying the measures being taken to p ro ­
tect rare m aterials, and describing how these m ea­
sures will enhance the institution’s resources in car­
rying out its mission;

2. establish firm lines of authority for the con­
duct of an economical and expeditious program ;

3. list the criteria of rarity being used in selecting 
transfer items, w hich m ay be influenced to some 
extent by the n atu re and strengths of the library’s 
general and special collections;

4. set forth clear procedures to be followed in the 
transfer process, including procedures for recom ­
m ending transfer, altering bibliographic and cir­
culation records, and inspection by the Preserva­
tion Officer; and

5. stipulate procedures w hereby readers can re­
quest individual transfer items.

In m any institutions it will be useful to solicit 
com m ents from  fa c u lty , stu d en ts a n d /o r o th er 
well-informed researchers, consult w ith staff at 
other libraries, or bring in a consultant to review or 
advise on statem ent preparation.

Once completed, the policy should be approved 
by the library’s senior adm inistration and incorpo­
rated into the library’s overall collection develop­
m ent policy.

Transfer procedures
A transfer program  has three phases:
1. identification of m aterials w hich fit the selec­

tion criteria;
2. physical relocation and processing; and
3. record changes.

1. Identification of materials
Ideally, a transfer program  will systematically 

inventory large segments of the general collections, 
examining each item individually and reviewing 
the bibliographic records for each: catalog cards, 
com puterized records, accession or shelf list and so 
on.

Few libraries, however, will find such a com pre­
hensive review possible. They will opt instead to re­
view m aterials and records selectively, perhaps as 
p a rt of a program  w ith another purpose. R egard­
less of how broadly, or narrow ly, based the tran s­
fer program  is, the direct inspection of both indi­
vidual transfer candidates and their corresponding 
bibliographic records is usually essential. A selec­
tive program  based on knowledge of the history of 
th e collection an d  designed to review  areas of 
known strength m ay m eet a substantial p a rt of the 
need.

A selective review m ay include any of the follow­
ing:

a. reading the shelves (or examining the shelf list) 
in classifications know n—or thought—to contain

candidates for transfer, such as early or local im ­
prints;

b. review ing chronological files for early im ­
prints of p articu lar interest and value; or

c. producing from m achine-readable records re­
view lists based on im print date, place of publica­
tion, literary genre or subject, or any com bination 
of similar keys.

Rare m aterial m ay be identified during the rou­
tine handling and review of m aterials for the fol­
lowing library functions:

a. acquisitions;
b. gifts and exchange;
c. cataloging;
d. preservation;
e. binding;
f. photoduplication;
g. m icroreproduction;
h. circulation;
i. inventorying and shelf-reading;
j. interlibrary loan;
k. preparation of exhibitions;
l. collection surveys;
m. retrospective conversion or records; and
n. weeding.
Any of these activities m ay incidentally locate 

m ultiple copies in the collection, the retention or 
disposal of which will be determ ined by local pol­
icy.

2. Conservation treatment
Conservation treatm en t should be considered 

carefully as a com ponent of the transfer policy. 
Such treatm ent (e.g., label removal, repair, phase 
boxing, com plete restoration) for individual items 
is desirable. But it may create backlogs or funding 
requirem ents which com plicate the transfer p ro ­
gram . The simplest physical treatm en t m ay prove 
most effective or most im m ediately cost-effective. 
The transfer program  m ay provide inform ation 
th a t will prove useful for m ore extensive restora­
tion of transferred items at a later date.

3. Record changes
A means must be devised, as p a rt of the transfer 

program , to inform readers prom ptly w hen the lo­
cation of an item has been changed. The most ef­
fective w ay to do this is through recataloging. This 
m ay, however, prove beyond the means of libraries 
faced w ith the transfer of a substantial num ber of 
items.

The following techniques have obvious a ttra c ­
tions (economic) and disadvantages (reduced ac­
cess to the collections). Still, a library m ight choose 
to:

a. annotate (or jacket) catalog cards; all cards 
m ight be treated or, less successfully, only some 
(e.g., m ain entry);

b. charge transferred items via a circulation rec­
ord;

c. indicate in m achine readable records a change 
in location;

d. place a dum m y in the old location to refer to



S ep tem b er 1987 /  473

original photographs—often produced in lim ited 
quantities—are vulnerable to m utilation and de­
serve protection.

O ther categories on w hich there is wide, b u t not 
always general, agreem ent include:

a. fine and signed bindings;
b. early publishers’ bindings;
c. extra-illustrated volumes;
d. books w ith significant provenance;
e. books w ith decorated end papers;
f . fine printing;
g. p rinting on vellum or highly unusual paper;
h. volumes or portfolios co n tain in g  unb o u n d  

plates;
i. books w ith valuable maps;
j. broadsides, posters and printed ephem era;
k. books by local authors of p articu lar note;
l. m aterial requiring security (e. g ., books in un u ­

sual form ats, erotica or m aterials th a t are difficult 
to replace).

3. Condition
W hile age itself dictates transfer for our oldest 

surviving books, condition m ay be m ore im portant 
in judging m ore recent m aterial. All values of the 
book—scholarly, bibliographical, and m arket— 
m ay be greatly affected by condition. Copies th a t 
are badly w orn, m uch repaired or rebound, should 
not autom atically be considered for transfer, unless 
the age of the m aterial preem pts condition as a cri­
terion.

The durability of most library m aterials pro­
duced since the m id–nineteenth century has de­
clined drastically. It is now increasingly difficult to 
locate even representative examples of m any nine­
teenth and tw entieth century printing and binding 
processes in fine original condition. So m any vol­
umes have required rebinding, for example, th a t 
the richness of the original decorative a rt applied to 
bindings and printed endpapers is increasingly dif­
ficult to find and study. Therefore, less th a n  fine 
copies m ust be scru tin ized  as possible tra n sfe r 
items.

M any tw entieth century books have been issued 
in dustjackets w hich “general” libraries often (and 
for good reasons) discard. Nonetheless, dustjack­
ets, like other ephem era, frequently contain im ­
p o rta n t inform ation (e.g., text, illustrative design, 
and price), and serious consideration should be 
given to their retention.

4. Bibliographical, research or market value
T he rarity  and im portance of individual books

are not always self-evident. Some books, for exam­
ple, w ere produced in circumstances w hich virtu­
ally guarantee their ra rity  (e.g., C onfederate im ­
prints) .

Factors affecting im portance and rarity can in­
clude the following:

1. desirability to collectors and the an tiq u arian  
book trade;

2. intrinsic or extrinsic evidence of censorship or 
repression;

the new;
e. transfer all m aterials published p rio r to a

stated date (e.g., 1751 or 1801) in some or all sub­
ject classifications w ithout record changes bu t w ith
general publicity. This systematic change has been
received well in some libraries.

W hat to transfer
T h e tra n s fe r decision should sim ultaneously

evaluate the unique qualities of an item and apply
institutional policy. Thus the candidate for tran s­
fer (e.g ., an 18th-century book) m ay fall w ithin the
scope of an existing special collections or rare book
collection developm ent policy. Selection for trans­
fer implies th a t all sim ilar items in the collection
(e.g., all books in original bindings printed before
1751) ought also be considered.

The constraints on policy are fam iliar: The insti­
tu tio n a l mission and the resources—personnel, 
space and equipm ent, technology, and budget— 
needed to conduct th a t mission. The interaction
betw een mission and resources dictates realism  
and, often, compromise. D efining w h at is rare or
unique is not always obvious, and decisions will 
vary am ong institutions. Still, certain general crite­
ria apply in evaluating an item for transfer:

1. age;
2. intrinsic characteristics and qualities;
3. condition;
4. bibliographical, research or m arket value.

1• Age
T h e  lo n g e r an  item  has su rv iv e d , th e  m o re

w orthw hile saving it probably becomes; as an item 
ages it becomes one of a decreasing num ber of w it­
nesses to its own tim e. Consequently there is now 
universal agreem ent on the need to protect 15th- 
century printing, even if fragm entary or present in 
“leaf” books. There is growing agreem ent on the 
same grounds to protect all m aterials, regardless of
form  or condition, printed before 1801. There is 
less general agreem ent on books of later date and 
on “regional incunables”—books published in a lo­
cality or region in the first years (or decades) after 
printing was established in th em —in spite of a con­
sensus th a t responsibility for them  m ust somehow 
be distributed am ong m any institutions.

2. Intrinsic characteristics
Books m ay possess intellectual value, artifactual 

value, or both. For those books of intellectual but 
not artifactual value institutional circumstances 
m ay necessitate p artial or com plete substitution of 
the original by microform or photocopy. But items 
w ith  a rtifa c tu a l v alu e, e .g ., finely p rin te d  or 
bound books, m anuscripts, draw ings or other orig­
inal art w ork including tipped-in photographs, re­
quire special protection of the objects themselves. 
Such m aterial will require transfer.

It is generally recognized th a t m iniature books 
(10 centim eters or smaller) are too vulnerable for 
open stacks and th a t m any books w ith prints and

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 



474 /  C &R L  N ew s

3. seminal n ature or im portance to a particular
field of study or genre of literature;

4. restricted or lim ited publication;
5. the cost of acquisition.

O lder reference works and early periodicals still
needed for general use frequently become quite
valuable and m ay require careful consideration for
transfer, especially if facsimile or other reprint edi­
tions are available to replace them  on the open
shelves.

Selected reading
The developm ent, definition and updating of a

transfer policy is a complex and ongoing process. It
requires the exercise of im agination and good judg­
m ent, and profits from wide and inform ed read­
ing. Although there is no literatu re dealing w ith
transfer per se, the following books, selected from 
the large literature of books about books and book
c o lle c tin g , m ay p ro v id e  special help to those

 

 
 
 

 

 
 

 

 

charged w ith form ing and reform ing their library’s 
policies.

1. Brook, G .L . Books and Book Collecting. L on­
don: Andre D eutsch, 1980.

2. C arter, John. A B C  fo r Book Collectors, 6th 
ed. rev. by N icolas B arker. L ondon: G ra n a d a  
Books, 1980.

3. C arter, John. Taste and Technique in Book 
C ollecting. L ondon: P riv a te  L ib rarie s Assoc., 
1982.

4. Cave, Boderick. Bare Book Librarianship. 
2nd rev. ed., New York: B.R. Bowker, 1983.

5. Gaskell, Philip. A N ew  Introduction to Bibli­
ography. N ew  York: O xford U niversity Press, 
1972.

6. Peters, Jean, ed. Book Collecting: A  M odern 
Guide. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1977.

7. Peters, Jean. Collectible Books: Some N ew 
Paths. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1979.

8. Schreyer, Alice D. Rare Books, 1983-84. New
York: R.R. Bowker, 1984. ■  ■

ACRL Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

The ACRL D octoral Dissertation Fellowship is 
sponsored by ACRL and the Institute for Scientific 
Inform ation (ISI). Its purpose is to foster research 
in academic librarianship by encouraging and as­
sisting doctoral students in the field w ith their dis­
sertation research. The fellowship consists of an 
aw ard of $1,000 and an appropriate citation. The 
w inner will be announced in New Orleans at ALA 
Annual Conference in 1988.

Eligibility. The recipient of the fellowship must 
m eet the following qualifications:

1) Be an active doctoral student in the academ ic 
librarianship area in a degree–granting institution.

2) Have com pleted all coursework.
3) Have had a dissertation proposal accepted by 

the institution.
4) Recipient of the fellowship m ay not receive it 

a second time.
5) The applicant need not be an ACRL m em ber.
Submission procedure. Qualified students who

wish to be considered for the fellowship m ay apply 
by subm itting a proposal to M ary Ellen K. Davis, 
P ro p ra m  O fficer, A C R L/A LA , 50 E ast H u ro n  
Street, Chicago, IL  60611-2795, by Decem ber 1, 
1987. The proposal should be brief (ten pages or 
less, double-spaced) and include the following:

1) Description of the research, including signifi­
cance and methodology.

2) Schedule for completion.
3) Budget and budget justification for items for 

w hich support is sought. (These must be items for 
which no other support is available.)

4) Name of dissertation advisor and com m ittee 
members.

5) Cover letter from dissertation advisor endors­

ing the proposal.
Examples of acceptable budget items are p rin t­

ing, com puter tim e, fees to subjects, keypunching, 
statistical consulting, photography, artw ork, ty p ­
ing and professional travel.

An up-to-date curriculum  vitae should accom­
pany the proposal.

Because of limits imposed by tim ing consider­
ations, applications m ay be m ade for research u n ­
derw ay; e.g., a student who begins research in the 
Fall m ay apply for support for expenses incurred 
from the Fall until the tim e the aw ard is made.

Criteria. The proposal will be judged prim arily 
on m erit w ith emphasis on the following:

1) Potential significance of the research to the 
field of academ ic librarianship. (No attem pt will 
be m ade to define academ ic librarianship, bu t the 
subject should be consistent w ith topics usually 
published in College & Research Libraries or p re­
sented at ACRL meetings.)

2) V alidity of the methodology and proposed 
methods of analysis.

3) O riginality and creativity.
4) C larity and completeness of the proposal.
5) Presentation of a convincing plan for com ple­

tion in a reasonable am ount of time.
6) Evidence of a continuing interest in scholar­

ship such as a previous publication record.
This year’s w inner is Ling Hwey Jeng, a Ph.D . 

candidate at the G raduate School of L ibrary and 
Inform ation Science, University of Texas at Aus­
tin . H er d issertatio n  is “ T he T itle Page as th e 
Source of Inform ation for Bibliographic Descrip­
tions: An Analysis of Its Syntactic and Semantic 
C haracteristics.” ■  ■



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