Rare Books and Special Materials

The FIMS Graduate Library Rare Books and Special Materials Collection contains 45 items including a small cuneiform clay tablet, examples of papyrus and parchment paper, a scroll, and several leather and paper bound books. The collection is used for educational purposes at FIMS to show examples of rare book materials to Library and Information students.

Many of the items are originals as far as the research and original donation and/or purchasing records show. Some items are facsimiles but still rare (as in the case of the Don Quixote facsimiles created in the 19th century) and still have educational value to show students elements of the original (such as the Gutenberg Bible or the Book of Kells in which the originals are in another collection).

The items have been described using the Dublin Core metadata fields and by using the AACR2 and DCRM (Descriptive Cataloguing of Rare Materials) cataloguing standards. Library of Congress Authorities were used to include the subject and creator fields and the ALA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) was consulted to ensure proper controlled vocabularies for rare books and bookbinding were used. Any new items added to the collection should strive to follow these descriptive standards to maintain consistency. WorldCat was also helpful for finding out additional information about the items such as author/creator, publisher, date, and subject headings.