Perhaps I misunderstood the question, but I thought it wasn't about whether
there are circumstances when some old textbooks might be worth keeping, but
whether old textbooks can ever be worth preserving in a university archives.

Documents placed in archives should have archival value. The fact that
something may have information worth preserving isn't enough to justify
preserving it in an archives. To be preserved in an archives, it should be
archival.

Furthermore, simply being archival isn't enough; whatever archival values an
item may have should be specific to your archives, its mission, and its
collection development policy. And, those archival values should be
significant enough to justify the time and expense of processing,
preservation, and storage.

So, under what circumstances can a bunch of old textbooks have sufficient
archival value to justify permanently preserving them in a university
archives? Simply having been used in a class at your school isn't enough.
Having annotations consisting of mostly underlining and an occasional margin
note isn't enough. Having been authored by a faculty member may not be
enough, depending on your collection policy.

Were they published by your university? Were they significantly annotated by
a university administrator with annotations that shed light on the
university's development?

If not, and if your only reason for considering them is the information on
their printed pages, then give them to your university library. Since most
university libraries have blanket policies against accepting donations of
old textbooks, they will then most likely be thrown away.

Lee

----
Leon C. Miller, Manuscripts Librarian
Special Collections, Jones Hall
Tulane University Libraries
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
ph: 504-865-5685, fx: 504-865-5761, [log in to unmask]
http://specialcollections.tulane.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Eric v.d. Luft, Ph.D., M.L.S., Curator of Historical
Collections
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Keeping Textbooks?


Steve, ABSOLUTELY keep them! Textbooks are the best primary resource for
the state of progress in any given field at any given time.

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