Cataloging/shelving 'old but interesting' materials

I am in the middle of recataloging the Milwaukee LGBT Center's collection, and have finished the fiction (that was the easy part).

Now I have the non-fiction, and in addition to refining the categories and sub-categories, I'm curious about the best way to include materials that are clearly no longer current, but have a historic kind of relevance. For example, a gay men's health and resource guide from 1976 - no mention of HIV/AIDS, of course, no mention of condom use, etc, etc. It's a fascinating snapshot of gay culture and social policies in the 70's, but does it really belong next to a current health resource title? Is there a better keyword for the catalog than "back in the day"? (my current option for this kind of material)

I do want to keep this title for those who want to compare past and current health advice, but how can I best identify materials from "the olden days" for those looking to find them?

Kate

With the caveat that I myself don't run a glbt library:

The first question I would ask myself would be: is this a good library to be storing historical information of this type? There are large glbt libraries and academic libraries with special collections devoted to glbt history that should have such material (and if they don't, maybe you're better off donating it to them than keeping it yourself.) The way to find out is to look the books up on Worldcat (www.worldcat.org). If a big research library has it (Cornell is the one I always look for because they have a huge, well-funded sexuality archives that is well taken care of), you don't need to use your limited shelf space on the odd chance a researcher might stop by to use it sometime.

If no one has it where you feel it would be safe, you might want to consider donating it. Cornell is always my first choice because I've dealt with them on numerous occasions and I'd sure they're maintaining a research collection in this area. However, the Historical Society of Wisconsin is also a well run research institution, and since it's close to you, I might ask them if they're keeping books relevant to the history of AIDS and if they'd like yours.

If you decide that your library is a good (or the best you can find) place to keep them, I'd make a large sticker for the front of the book with wording like "The health information in the book is outdated. Please use it only for historical research about AIDS" and shelve it with history rather than health issues.

Hope that helps.

Thanks! Those are some good points, and some that I hadn't considered. I have worked with the special collections librarian at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and I'll check with him about potential donation options if we decide not to keep the materials.

For older medical info, I place a note in the book pocket with the checkout card pointing out that the info is out of date. We also have a remote storage where we send some of this type of material.

I have finished the "Spirituality" category, and came up with the idea of giving the outdated material a separate call number, so it stays with the subject but is separate from the current materials. Until I come up with a better term, I'm calling the subsection "Historical Perspectives".

I got some help from a pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church who was visiting the LGBT center in determining which titles were still relevant, and which were outdated but interesting for the historical perspective. We now have three sections: personal stories, spiritual guidance, and the "historical perspectives" materials.

I use the term "antiquated theory" for medical and psychological materials that deal with conversion and re-programming. We've actually added many new titles that fall into that category and I have not been good about added the tags.

I have created a special call number for homophobic materials (we use a modified version of LC) with the subject heading Hopmophobia - examples

Thanks for the ideas! I think "antiquated theory" will be a great category name for materials in the psychology and health section.

Also use the local subject heading - Anti-gay propaganda.
I also give them a special call number so they are not mixed in with other materials.

I have a different question but in line with with the cataloging/shelving question. Thanks to the generous donation we received from Quatrafoil Library in St. Paul we simply do not have enough shelf space or floor space to house everything. We intend to keep it all but we will have to put about 1,500 to 2,000 volumes in storage.

We'll have to box up the storage items so I've been working on some guidelines to determine what to store. I've been thinking about the doing the following:

Store Books based on date of publication.

Exclude: Social Sciences (class H), Music (class M), Art (class N), Language and Literature (class P), Photography/eye candy (class TR)

For everything else we would store anything published before 1980 and then everything before 1990 if we need additional shelf space.

Using pub dates will put all of our "antiquated theory" items (law, medicine, etc.) in storage and off the shelves. I know there is "antiquated theory" material in the Hs and the Ps but these areas provide the historical perspective without providing "bad" legal and medical information.

Store Rare books.

About 1,200 (15%) or our books are not widely help by LT users or libraries on OCLC. I don't really want to box these up but I do worry about them being stolen. Most of our rare books are in the language and literature section (class P). Very few of these books have been scanned into Google Books. (I would love to get these scanned into Google Books or the Internet Archives but that's a whole different thread).

Store books held locally by other libraries.

We've added the University of Pittsburgh, Pitt, (largest local academic library) and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, CLP, (our local public library) as "collections" in our LT catalog. When you search our catalog you can tell if one of these libraries also owns a copy of the title. About 1,000 or our books are also owned by both Pitt and CLP. We could store all of those books published before 19xx.

Is the fact that they are available elsewhere a good enough reason to but books into storage? Many of our users come to us because they aren't comfortable going to Pitt and CLP.

These are the options so far. If you have any thoughts please let me know.

We have an embarrassment of wishes here in Pittsburgh thanks to Quatrafoil. Help!

Dan

Definitely you could store older (10+ years) books in K (Law), L (Education), Q (Sciences), or R (Medicine). Especially K & R, anything older than 10 years is very outdated. You might want to make individual exceptions in case the only copy you have of *And the Band Played On* was an older edition. When we remodeled & had to put a lot of our collection in storage, we also placed all the Ps that were not North American or Britain into storage as well as pre-20th Century Ps for Britain & US. For H's, we stored all except HQ.