Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. Here is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.
Over the last ten years, the Krueger Library has had a program of labelling some books with a decal that indicates that the volume is a “notable book.” For example, in the juvenile book collection, Caldecott or Newbery award winners might be given the “notable book” label. In the regular collection, one of the bibliographies we have consulted to identify notable books is the American Historical Association’s Guide to Historical Literature.
Because academic libraries try to collect books that are noted in their fields of study, those well-regarded titles are likely to be widely held and are not likely be on any one library’s retention list. Only about two percent of the books on our retention list also have a “notable book” label. Here are two of those rare titles, which both are well-regarded among scholars and are uncommon in Minnesota. The second was donated to our library by former Dean of Liberal Arts, Peter Henderson.
Thiesenhusen, William C. Searching for Agrarian Reform in Latin America. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 1989.
O’Crouley, Pedro Alonso. A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain. Translated by Seán Galvin. San Francisco: J. Howell, 1972 (originally written in 1774).
