In general, books arriving as part of a manuscript collection should be removed from the collection during processing. Appraisal of printed materials can be complex; there are often categories that are clear to processors, and then a wide swath of grey area. Workflow for working with printed material will often depend on the volume of material. Discuss issues with your team lead and then with the Books Curator.
When cataloged, the HOLLIS record for the published item will have a 541 in the holdings (Source of Acquisition, i.e. donor name) and then usually a 561 (ownership note, which usually is the name of the collection, i.e. From the papers of Dorothy I. Height or From the records of Boston Women's Health Book Collective). The text of the 561 is also written in pencil on the item, but the published materials department is no longer using physical bookplates.
Books may fall into one of several categories: 1. Books by or about the creator of the Manuscript collection. 2. Books that are not by or about the creator but fall into the Schlesinger Library collecting policy for printed materials. 3. Books that you are not sure whether they fall into the collecting policy. 4. Books that duplicate current Schlesinger Library holdings. 5. Books that are out of scope of our collecting policy.
Essentially, archivists are assessing and searching HOLLIS for holdings information on all these categories of books, but might want to separate them into relevant categories for curatorial ease of appraisal.
1. Those Those volumes that are are by or about the the creator of the manuscript collection but are not currently in our collection (or, in some cases, may duplicate what's in our collection but be annotated or have some other compelling reason to keep and catalog them) are relatively easy for the processor to identify. Fill out a “Printed Materials Separated from Manuscript Collections ” form. These volumes can be cataloged as per the processor's recommendation; but the Books Curator should still review them for her general knowledge.You should list these titles individually in the Separation Record of the finding aid, with a note "The following items have been transferred to the Schlesinger Library books and printed materials collection: "separation form and separately note the titles in order to inform the curators of what is being added to the library collection.
2. Books that are are not by or about the the creator but clearly fall into the the Schlesinger Library collecting policy for for printed materials can can also be cataloged on a catalogers' recommendation. As above, the Curator should still review them for her general knowledgethe archivist’s recommendation. Fill out a “Printed Materials Separated from Manuscript Collections ” form.You should list these titles individually in the Separation Record of the finding aid, with a note "The following items have been transferred to the Schlesinger Library books and printed materials collection: "separation form and separately note the titles in order to inform the curators of what is being added to the library collection.
3. Books that are are not by or about the the creator and MAY fall into the the Schlesinger Library collecting policy for for printed materials are are more difficult to appraise. You should segregate these materials for review by the Book Curatorcurators. Fill out a “ Printed Materials Separated from Manuscript Collections” form.
You should list these titles individually in the Separation Record of the finding aid, with a note "The following items have been transferred to the Schlesinger Library books and printed materials collection (pending review by curator): " In the best case scenario, you can ask Marylene directly abuot the books, and then no "pending review" notice will be necessary.
4. Books that duplicate current Schlesinger Library holdings. If these do not merit inclusion in the collection (if they have annotations, bookplates, signatures, etc., they may merit inclusion) they can be considered for the Book Sale. Book sale candidates can be put in a carton (WITH separation slips! Marylene re-checks things before the book sale and will want to know you already did the searching.) with a green "book sale" sign on the outside. Full cartons of book sale materials (newsletters too, whatever) should be moved to the Pool Vault. Check with Debbie to see if Books Dept. students can do this work for you.
5. Books that are out of scope may be sent to other Harvard libraries or considered for the Book Sale. All communication with other libraries will go through Marylene Altieri as of 2015.
Any book in category #3, 4, and 5 that you are not sure about, that seems potentially valuable to another library (Harvard or elsewhere) or to a dealer warrants discussion or review by the Books Curator.
When cataloged, the following information will be retained (either in the bibliographic record or on the book plate or penciled in the volume itself): the accession number (or call number) and the name of the manuscript collection from which it was removed. If a second copy is in the manuscript collection, that, too, will be noted. The book plate will read: "Received with the papers of [name of collection]." For organizational records, it will read: “Received with the records of [name of organization].”
For more information on “Recording and Tracing Ownership in the Aleph Record,” see document named “Recording and tracing sources of ms material” in the Collection Services directory on G:
given to the Published and Printed Materials Department for sale through Better World Books, the Prison Book Program, or for possible donation to another library. These books can be given (with completed separation forms) to the head of published materials with a note that you think they should be sent to Better World Books or another library. Please note that for published materials that duplicate items in other libraries at Harvard, consult with the curators whether we should also have a copy at the Schlesinger.
5. For books that are out of scope, box them together and create only one separation form for the box indicating in the notes field that all the materials in that box are out of scope. The Head of Published Materials will then review for possible donation.