Boston
Athenæum Acquisitions Policy and
Principal
Collecting Areas
LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS POLICY
(Current Monographic
Collections)
The Boston Athenæum pursues an acquisitions policy that is determined both by the character of its established collections and by the needs of its membership. Since 1807 the Athenæum has evolved into a highly respected research library, while it continues to be an important resource for a devoted membership. The responsibility of the Book Acquisitions Librarian and the Book Selection Committee is to acquire books appropriate to both the researcher as well as the casual reader. We must fulfill the demand for the latest biographies, histories, fiction, and other popular works while continuing to maintain and strengthen research collections such as Confederate history, fine arts, fiction, literature, local history and the reference collections required to support them. In certain subject areas we attempt to acquire material comprehensively while in others only selectively. We additionally attempt to buy a reasonable number of good books in diverse areas that may not be represented in depth in Boston Athenæum holdings (for example, we recently bought books on baseball, ecology, medicine, Oriental art, ornithology). We see these purchases as necessary to maintain the general intellectual tone of the collection and also to satisfy the varied reading interests of Athenæum members. We occasionally purchase books on subjects outside our collection strengths, (for instance, a book written by an Athenaeum member), but for the most part we purchase books with subject matter relevant to our established collections. We try to buy those books, regardless of subject, that we feel will be of current and lasting interest.
