From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2017 19:23:57 -0700

The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints is one of the truly
mighty works of humankind.  A few list members of mature years will
remember all the years of seeing the long green line spread across the
shelves, and will also remember them as a miracle of information
technology and a facilitator of swift access to ILL.  Now they are of
at best limited use, though I do observe that Widener Library keeps
them handy by in one of its most handsome reading rooms.  Harvard
students are, of course, special.

We approach a great renovation, however, and the dark top floor
hallway where we keep our set will soon enough face the sledgehammer.
What to do with them?  My inclination is to take a few exemplary
volumes for special collections as examples and deaccession the rest.
(One of the exemplary volumes would have to be in the volumes with
"Bible" on the spine, for a reason which again a few will remember.)
But I pause, recalling the fate of Roman Catholic liturgical books in
the 1960s, when the arrival of mimeographed booklets containing the
text of Blowin' in the Wind and Kumbaya were the occasion of mass and
indiscriminate pitching.  How would we know that we as a collectivity
*are* hanging on to complete last copies for preservation purposes and
that our research libraries are not all calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK at the
same time?  I've told my folks to hold off dialing until I can hear
encouragement or dissuasion.

Jim O'Donnell
ASU