Collecting for Libary Use - A Wonder

          When a library lines of items for use by patrons, what factors determine how many of one item a library will acquire? I know much of this has to do with money, but there are other elements in the decision mix which must be taken into account when a library or library system decides to purchase resources (print, image or digital). A side question to this may be whether there is a format that best fits each type pf item collected or if all formats are equally useful in every situation (all other things being equal).

          In terms of topic oriented collecting, where doses topic stop and another begin? Can we define this line? Is a library, public of academic, supposed to collect all publications by a well-red fiction author? Or must we think of this as excessive? If we collect all of an author's published works, do we also decide to collect monographs on said author? And what about books that might be defined as relevant to understanding context to that author's works or writing space?

          I mean to have no answers here. And my link to Wikipedia is for dialogue purposes only. I just mean to invite conversation. Please weigh in. I welcome comments here  (moderated) or @ Twitter.

          Thank you much.
          There will be more in the future.

Comment on British Library Printing Guide

I finished reading Michael Twyman's THE BRITISH LIBRARY GUIDE TO PRINTING: HISTORY AND TECHNIQUES, my first book-length read in this area. My intention with this post is to bring attention to this item and the series because M. Twyman's writing is ridiculously easy to read and I assume the others are just as easy. I plan to invest time in the rest of these books over the next several months. Some comment will be made here as the history of printing is part of the history of libraries, book arts and rare books and this writer is committed to mention of rare books, special collections (of which rare books and book arts are sub-fields) and libraries. The University of Toronto Press has published several more books in this series. A few of them are: THE BRITISH LIBRARY GUIDE TO BOOKBINDING: HISTORY AND TECHNIQUES by P.J.M. Marks, THE BRITISH LIBRARY GUIDE TO MANUSCRIPT ILLUMINATION: HISTORY AND TECHNIQUES by Christopher De Hamel and THE BRITISH LIBRARY GUIDE TO WRITING AND SCRIPTS: HISTORY AND TECHNIQUES by Michelle P. Brown.

Looking forward to learning more in this area and blog readers should expect mention of these works in the future.