#40057 RECORDS OF THE ACADEMIC AFFAIRS LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS DEPARTMENT in the University Archives and Records Service University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Wilson Library, CB# 3926 Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514-8890 July 1992 The Acquisitions Department (formerly the Order Department) is responsible for the processing of the majority of the book materials acquired by the Academic Affairs Library through purchase or gift. The Department's major divisions are the Order Section and the Gifts and Exchanges Section. The Department Head reports to the Associate Librarian for Technical Services. The records in this group the acquisition of library materials both before and after the formal establishment of the Department. The material is arranged in three subgroups, as follows: SUBGROUP 1: ANNUAL REPORTS, 1937-1975 SUBGROUP 2: DONATION RECORDS, 1795-1893 SUBGROUP 3: ACCESSION REGISTERS SERIES 1: MAIN COLLECTION, 1894-1948 SERIES 2: SERIALS COLLECTION, 1922-1955 An inventory of each subgroup is provided below. See also the following additional records groups in the University Archives. Records of the Office of the University Librarian, Series 7, Subseries 2 (Acquisitions Department); and Records of Academic Affairs Library: Gifts and Exchanges Section. SUBGROUP 1: ANNUAL REPORTS This subgroup includes the annual narrative and statistical reports of activities for the Department and its subsections. Folder 1: 1937-1938 Folder 2: 1938-1939 Folder 3: 1939-1940 Folder 4: 1940-1941 Folder 5: 1941-1942 Folder 6: 1942-1943 Folder 7: 1943-1944 Folder 8: 1944-1945 Folder 9: 1945-1946 Folder 10: 1946-1947 Folder 11: 1948-1949 Folder 12: 1949-1950 Folder 13: 1950-1951 Folder 14: 1951-1952 Folder 15: 1952-1953 Folder 16: 1953-1954 Folder 17: 1954-1955 Folder 18: 1955-1956 Folder 19: 1956-1957 Folder 20: 1956-1957 Folder 21: 1957-1958 Folder 22: 1964-1965 Folder 23: 1965-1966 Folder 24: 1966-1967 Folder 25: 1967-1968 Folder 26: 1968-1969 Folder 27: 1969-1970 Folder 28: 1970-1971 Folder 29: 1971-1972 Folder 30: 1974-1975 SUBGROUP 2: DONATION RECORDS This subgroup includes lists and registers of gifts to the Library predating the establishment of the Acquisitions Department. See also Records of the Academic Affairs Library: Gift and Exchanges Section, a separate group in the Archives Folder 1: 1795-1800; 1816 List compiled by David L. Swain as part of the manuscript volume "History of the University of North Carolina" Folder 2: 1875-1887 Volume: 1869-1893 SUBGROUP 3: ACCESSION REGISTERS From 1894 until the middle of the present century the University Librarian and later the Acquisitions Department accessioned acquisitions numerically in ledgers. The ledgers record the date of acquisition, title and author, number of volumes, size of volumes, publication data, and source of acquisition. There are two series of ledgers: Series 1 for the Main Collection and Series 2 for the Serials Collection. The North Carolina Collection and the Law Library maintained separate acquisition ledgers, which continue to be held by those agencies. In December 1948 the Order Department (predecessor of the Acquisitions Department) discontinued using registers for Main Collection materials and began recording accession numbers on shelf list cards. The Serials Registers were maintained until 1955. While the registers of both series run chronologically, there are many breaks in the numerical sequences. It is probable that blocks of numbers were assigned to the North Carolina Collection and to the Law Library. However, in most cases, no explanation is given in the registers. For a fuller discussion of the accession registers, see the following memorandum by Louis Round Wilson: MEMORANDUM CONCERNING SERIES OF LARGE AND SMALL ACCESSION BOOKS The series of large accession books was begun in the fall of 1894 and it and the volumes which succeeded it contain the record of current acquisitions received after that date until the keeping of accession books was terminated. The questions may arise, why did it begin with number 24,401? The answer is simple. It began with that number because at the time the accession record was begun in 1894 it was estimated, or established by count, that the University Library, after merging with the Di and Phi libraries, contained 24,400 volumes. None of them had been accessioned. So the new accessions began at that point. It may also be asked why did the series of small accession books which began in 1901 start with the number 1? Again the answer is simple. No accession record had been kept from 1795 up to 1894. The small accession book series was begun so that there might be a list of the books received from 1795 to 1894 by the Societies and the University which were merged in 1892-93 or about that time. That is a part of the answer. The other part of the answer grows out of the fact that in the summer of 1901 the Library began to reclassify and recatalog the books in the merged library, of which 24,400 had never been accessioned and about 8,000 of which had been accessioned since 1894. In recataloging it was customary to put accession numbers on the main author cards. Consequently, as sections of the Library, such as Economics and English, which contained many unaccessioned books, were recataloged in the summer of 1901, it was necessary to enter them in the small accession books so that accession numbers could be placed on the main author cards. The desirability of this can be seen in the case of a set of books, some of which had been acquired before 1894 and others after. It was supposed that in the course or recataloging all of the numbers up to 24,400 would be used. And that was about what happened with one exception. After 1914, with new assistants taking over accessioning, some titles acquired after 1894 crept into the record, and in 1938 someone who had no knowledge of the facts set forth above saw some blank pages at hand and filled them up, duplicating numbers from 24,400 to 25,000! Two further facts may be noted. In March 1919, after the purchase of the Weeks Collection of North Caroliniana, the North Carolina Collection began keeping a separate accession book; and in March, 1922, the serials department did likewise. I understand that the Law School did likewise at a later date. The librarians of those units turned in to the Library annually an account of the number of accessions so they could be included in the total used by the Main Library in reporting its annual acquisitions. Now a comment about another mystery which is related to the large accession books recording entries for 1901, 1902, and 1903. The total at the end of December, 1903, is indicated as 34,519. But my printed report in the December Record for 1903 shows the total as being 41,288. How can the difference of 6,769 be explained? It cannot be explained exactly, because the dates in the accession book are not set down sharply showing exactly where the years began and ended. Then there could have been errors in printing. But the main increase of 6,769 volumes was due to an actual recount of all books in the University in the summer of 1902. The recount included in addition to the merged collections in Smith Hall all unaccessioned books in the professional school and departmental libraries, in the North Carolina Historical Society Collection, and in the Di and Phi Halls and elsewhere in the University. The count was made by two student assistants and myself. The total arrived at in 1902 with this addition has been used in computing totals since. Discrepancies may be found, but this represented the Library's complete holdings. Louis R. Wilson 2 October, 1954 ADDENDUM: The general correctness of my foregoing explanation of the number of volumes in the Library at the end of 1901 as contrasted in the number indicated in the accession book for that date is largely borne out by the following excerpts from the Report of Richard Wyche, the Librarian, in the Minutes of the Trustees, 1891-1898, pages 515-516, on February 17, 1896, which I have just discovered. The Report covered the period from September 1, 1894 to December 28, 1895. Wyche estimated at that time that the Library contained 36,000 volumes. "The gifts for 1894-95 were not all counted, but probably 125 volumes would be a fair estimate, giving a total of 857 volumes for the year." "The books catalogued and those not catalogues, but arranged on shelves, were counted about a year ago and found to be about 24,000. These leaves and allowance of 11,000 to cover duplicates, public documents, and others upstairs and in closets, and the Elisha Mitchell Library." When the 857 volumes are added to the 35,000 noted above, they give a round figure of 36,000. Wyche could easily have overestimated the number of duplicates and of unaccessioned volumes in the public document collection and the Mitchell Society Collection and the books outside the main room of Smith Hall such as the departmental libraries, the North Carolina Historical Society Collection, the Shakespeare Club Collection, and a number of books retained in the Halls of the Literary Societies. A number of the duplicates were sold or otherwise disposed of about the middle of the 1890's. I did not find as many books unaccessioned as Wyche estimated. My count exceeded the accession record by 6,769, Wyche's by 11,000. As I have suggested, some of the unaccessioned books in 1895 may have been accessioned prior to the end of 1901, and some of the duplicates may have been disposed of. The North Carolina Room has a list of duplicates that were sold, but there is no record, so far as I know, of any other disposition of them. Louis R. Wilson Chapel Hill, NC 1 December, 1954 SERIES 1: MAIN COLLECTION 72 volumes, 1894-1948 Volumes 1-5 were used to records the accessions of library holdings acquired prior to 1894 as the result of the consolidation of the University, Dialectic Society, and Philanthropic Society libraries. Accession numbers 1-24400 were reserved for this purpose. VOLUME NUMBER DATES COVERED ACCESSION NUMBERS 1 1901-1905 1-5000 2 1905 5001-10000 3 1905-1909 10001-15000 4 1909-1913 15001-20000 5 1914-1938 20001-22555 6 1894-1900 24401-30200 7 1900-1901 30201-32200 8 1901-1908 32201-42200 9 1908-1910 42201-47100 10 1910-1911 47101-52200 11 1911-1913 52201-58200 12 1913-1915 58201-63200 13 1915-1917 63201-68200 14 1917-1918 68201-73200 15 1918-1919 73201-78200 16 1919-1920 83201-88200 17 1920-1921 88201-93200 18 1921-1922 93201-98200 19 1922 98201-103200 20 1922-1923 103201-103790 108791-113200 21 1923-1924 113201-118200 22 1924 123201-128200 23 1924-1925 128201-133200 24 1925 133201-138200 25 1925-1926 138201-143200 26 1926 148201-153200 27 1926-1927 158201-163200 28 1927 163201-168200 29 1927 168201-173200 30 1927-1928 183201-188200 31 1928 188201-193200 32 1928-1929 193201-198200 33 1929-1930 198201-203200 34 1930 203201-208200 35 1930-1931 213201-218200 36 1931-1932 218201-223200 37 1932 228201-233300 38 1932-1933 233301-238300 39 1933 238301-243300 40 1933-1934 248301-253300 41 1934 258301-263300 42 1934-1935 263301-268300 43 1935 273301-278300 44 1935-1936 278301-283300 45 1936 288301-293300 46 1936-1937 298301-303300 47 1937 303301-308300 48 1937-1938 313301-318300 49 1938 318301-323300 50 1938-1939 323301-328300 51 1939 338301-343300 52 1939-1940 343301-348300 53 1940 358301-363300 54 1940-1941 353301-368300 55 1941 368301-373300 56 1941-1942 378301-383300 57 1942 388301-393300 58 1942 393301-398300 59 1942-1943 403301-408300 60 1943 413301-418300 61 1943-1944 418301-423300 62 1944 423301-428300 63 1944-1945 433301-438300 64 1945-1946 438301-443300 65 1946 448301-453300 66 1946 453301-458300 67 1946-1947 458301-463300 68 1947 463301-468300 69 1947-1948 473301-478300 70 1948 478301-483300 71 1948 488301-493300 72 1948 498301-500900 SERIES 2: SERIALS COLLECTION 28 volumes, 1922-1955 VOLUME NUMBER DATES COVERED ACCESSION NUMBERS 1 1922-1924 103201-108200 2 1924-1926 118201-123200 3 1926-1928 143201-148200 4 1928-1930 178201-183200 5 1930-1932 208201-213200 6 1932-1934 223201-228200 7 1934-1936 253301-258300 8 1936-1937 283301-288300 9 1937-1938 308301-313300 10 1938-1940 328301-333300 11 1940-1941 353301-358300 12 1941-1943 373301-378300 13 1943-1945 408301-413300 14 1945-1947 443301-448261 15 1947-1948 468301-473300 16 1948-1949 493301-498300 17 1949-1950 508301-513300 18 1950 518301-523300 19 1950-1951 618301-623300 20 1951 623301-628300 21 1951-1952 628301-633300 22 1952 633301-638300 23 1952-1953 638301-643300 24 1953-1954 643301-648300 25 1954 648301-653300 26 1954-1955 653301-658300 27 1955 663301-667243 28 1955 733301-734597