WSU Retention List Stories

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).

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.

The association between university students and beer drinking has a long history; therefore, it is appropriate that one of the titles on Winona State’s retention list explores the hoppier side of the life of the mind.

Hales, Steven D. Beer and Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

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.

  When multiple institutions within the Minnesota Shared Print Program have the same series of volumes, the institution which has the most complete set is awarded the series on its retention list. Winona State has the distinction of having been the first state-supported normal school west of the Mississippi and was founded the same year as the National Education Association. Winona State’s run of the proceedings of the NEA goes back to 1860, and we were awarded that series on our retention list.
  Proceedings. Washington, D. C: National Education Association, 1858-.

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.

Perhaps the primary criterion for a book on the retention list is that it is scarcely-held in the State of Minnesota.

George Boole was the 19^th century mathematician who pioneered the mathematics of logic—the algebra of ANDs, ORs, and NOTs—hence, there is a great deal of interest in his work among computer scientists. Books by or about George Boole are plentiful in Minnesota and none of them are on Winona State’s retention list; however, his wife Mary was a mathematics educator, and a selection of her writings is on our list.

Boole, Mary Everest. A Boolean Anthology: Selected Writings of Mary Boole on Mathematical Education. Compiled by D. G. Tahta. Nelson: Association of Teachers of Mathematics, 1972.

Winona State is one of the few institutions in the United States which has a dedicated Polymer Composite Engineering program. Since the program began in the 1990s, our library has devoted significant resources to building a collection to support that program. That legacy is evident in the number of titles on our retention list that relate to the chemistry and engineering of plastics and composites. Here are two of the many titles:

Lipton, Eldra. Advances and Applications of Rheology. New York: New York Research Press, 2015.

Kamal, Musa R., Avraam I. Isayev, and Shih-Jung Liu. Injection Molding: Technology and Fundamentals. Munich: Hanser, 2009.