Additional Collecting Factors

Relationship with other Repositories, Cooperative Agreements, and Related Collections

The RBMSCL chooses its target collecting areas with an awareness of collecting activities of other U.S. repositories, especially those in the southeast. In making acquisitions, the library generally seeks to avoid dividing collections among institutions. When offered donations of materials beyond the scope of its primary collecting areas, the RBMSCL may refer donors to more appropriate institutions.

In the collecting area of Southern literature, the RBMSCL collects the literary products of small Southern presses, while the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill collects Southern literary magazines. Although the RBMSCL seeks to coordinate collecting efforts with the University of North Carolina's Rare Book Department, Manuscripts Department, and North Carolina Collection, the library has entered into no further formal cooperative agreements.

Within the Duke Library system, RBMSCL collectors coordinate collection building with Perkins and branch library resource specialists. This is accomplished by the dual appointment of some RBMSCL collectors as Duke library system subject resource specialists, informal discussions and meetings of Perkins discipline groups, and the RBMSCL's acceptance of materials for preservation and security purposes (see above).

Collection Modifiers

The RBMSCL places no overall geographical, linguistic, or chronological limitations on the scope of materials to be collected. Rather, collecting policies for individual subject areas delineate such collecting restrictions. No particular formats are excluded, although the library does not seek to acquire objects better suited for museum collections. Such memorabilia may, however, be accepted as part of larger collections, if useful for exhibition or instructional purposes.