Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Hello Jean,
Due to reasons of storage and retrieval, we place our "medium-rare"
materials in the same shelving area along with the rare material. (The
really rare stuff is locked up.) So we don't have a separate medium-rare
area - it's either rare or it isn't.
For us, our criteria for medium-rare consists of limited editions
(including facsimiles, which tend to go out of print quickly), expensive
items, or books which have separable pieces.
For example, some time ago we acquired a limited edition book by Ringo
Starr -- "Letters from Ringo" -- in which each letter (mostly postcards)
was reproduced in facsimile and could be removed from the book for
examination. Needless to say, this is the kind of item that would probably
be heavily vandalized if we did not treat it like a rare book or
manuscript. A recent coffee-table-like book on Jimi Hendrix also had many
separable pieces, so we classified it as rare, so that its use by the
public would be under the scrutiny of the staff in our Special Collections
reading room.
Let me know if you need more amplification.
Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D., Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Music Division -- The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions.