Collection Management Division

George A. Smathers Libraries

Collection Management Bulletin 6.14

August 4, 1992

Guidelines for Identification of Materials for Rare Books and Special Collections

The concept of rarity is a fluid or elastic one in its meaning. Over time materials once thought commonplace or ordinary acquire, by means of the intellectual or commercial marketplace, a value, whether artifactual and/or monetary which they were not seen previously to possess. This means that we must be constantly aware of shifts in attitude or perception about items in the collection which in a previous review we may have, being constantly in tune with the zeitgeist, heretofore regarded as pedestrian.

This document is deliberately oversimplified for purposes of brevity. Please use it together with policies for Limited Circulation Collection and the subject-specific Special Collections. Final decisions on the purchases for, or transfers to, Rare Books involve further subjective considerations such as condition, completeness, usefulness to scholars at UF and elsewhere, and cost of purchase of maintenance.

The Libraries' Special Collections provide a secure, climate-controlled environment for the preservation and use of non-circulating printed and manuscript materials of substantial textual or contextual scholarly value. These may differ from those in the Limited Circulation Collection by combining one or more of the criteria specified for that collection (irreplaceability, vulnerability, market value, etc.) with primary research potential; or they may differ only in a matter of degree of scarcity, cost, fragility, and the like.

Ideally, a "rare book" is worth preserving in near-original condition both for its artifactual value--its embodiment of historical printing and publishing practices--and its intellectual content. The relative importance of these features, however, will vary in nearly every case.

The original format can reveal more than any kind of reprint, facsimile, filming, or optical digitization can. In some cases, of course, rare books provide access to information still available only in traditional form.

Selectors are urged to be alert in spotting materials within their specialties that may fit these guidelines. Any library user or staff member may recommend items for Rare Books and other Special Collections; decisions to transfer rest with the Chair for Special Collections or the librarian/Curator.

1. Seminal Works in any field of study, any historical period, in their original incarnations and in noteworthy subsequent appearances. Here the subject specialist's judgement is irreplaceable.



2. First Printings of literary works; other printings within the lifetime (and potential supervision or revision) of the author.



3. Significant Provenances: books containing important autographs, inscriptions, annotations, original drawings, photographs, insertions, bookplates, or armorial bindings.



4. Artifacts in the History of the Book/the Book Arts by virtue of:
   1. Age: books printed in Western Europe before 1750, in other areas before 1850;
   2. Scarcity: books printed in editions of 200 or less; suppressed books; fakes and forgeries; privately printed books;
   3. Artistic or Technical Import: hand-made books; books from fine presses; books with hand-colored plates or other significant illustrations; books with fore-edge paintings or fine bindings; books representing an innovative or eccentric method of production.
   
   
5. Ephemerality: items printed with no thought of permanence, often documenting ideas in unique ways, from non-mainstream points of view. Such material almost never survives outside special collections.



6. Comprehensiveness: collections of titles, built deliberately or not, encompassing in depth a specific subject or writer; a comprehensiveness impossible or extremely unlikely to be duplicated. Since teaching faculty had primary responsibility for library selection before 1987, many accumulated "pockets" of specialized resources reflecting their particular academic interests/hobby-horses; these may be worth preserving: the whole being quite valuable, though not necessarily the individual parts.



7. Original Manuscripts, letters, other handwritten documents.