New Books at the Blahblah Library

Chuck Jones recently raised the topic of Acquisitions Lists published online by various key libraries at his Ancient World Online.  His suggestions, augmented by those added in comments, are the following:

• Monthly Lists of Recent Acquisitions in the Blegen Library (American School of Classical Studies, Athens)
• Monthly Lists of Recent Acquisitions in the Gennadius Library (American School of Classical Studies, Athens)
• The Acquisitions List of the Research Archives, The Oriental Institute
• Bibliothèque des Sciences de l’Antiquité (Lille, France), Listes d’acquisitions
• The Burnam Classical Library at the University of Cincinnati, Recent Acquisitions
• Bryn Mawr Classical Review: Books Available for Review (not technically a library acquisitions list, but serving much the same function for those looking for new works being published)

I looked at a couple of other schools and found that in many cases while no official list is published, it is possible to generate a list and then narrow it down by call number range, for example, to find a list of new books in one’s field of interest.  Bryn Mawr is like this, for example (one can customize the page and set it to email a new list weekly, so you could see all books added to the Carpenter Library, for example), and Princeton has a similar interface.

So too is the UGA Library catalog; we have a “new book” search in the GIL Classic interface, which can then be sorted by call number.  Because books relevant to Classics fall into multiple possible call numbers, I decided to do a test of how long it would take me to generate a list of relevant new books added to the UGA Libraries in a sample week.  The answer: about 20 minutes.

Of the 609 items added to the Main Library collection on the week ending 9/28/10, I judged 11 to be relevant to the interests of the Classics Department of UGA, based solely on their titles taken in conjunction with their Library of Congress call numbers.  I found skimming titles an easier way to go through the list than call numbers, since I did not have a specific set of call number ranges in mind as targets.  In fact, call numbers included B, BJ, D, DF, DS, GT, and PA.

The next question becomes, is it worth it for me to spend about half an hour each week culling new books of possible interest to Classics, and emailing the faculty and graduate students?  I do run into some of them regularly as they peruse the new book shelves in the Main Library, so clearly our acquisitions are of some interest.  Perhaps I shall survey the faculty and see if this service would be valuable to them.

For the record, this week’s list is as follows (I am probably overly-inclusive, if anything, especially when it comes to archaeological works – one’s prejudices at work!):

-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Brickhouse, Thomas C., 1947-
       Title:  Socratic moral psychology
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 6th floor
 Call Number:  B317 .B695 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Berg, Steven, 1959-
       Title:  Eros and the intoxications of enlightenment : on Plato's Symposium
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 6th floor
 Call Number:  B385 .B47 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:
       Title:  Greek and Roman philosophy 100 BC-200 AD
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 6th floor
 Call Number:  B505 .G74 2007
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Thorsteinsson, Runar M.
       Title:  Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism : a comparative study of ancient morality
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 6th floor
 Call Number:  BJ221 .T46 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Fournier, Julien, 1978-
       Title:  Entre tutelle romaine et autonomie civique : l'administration judiciaire dans les provinces hellenophones de l'empire romain, 129 av. J.-C-235 ap. J. C
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 4th floor
 Call Number:  D5 .B4 no. 341
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Sjoˆgren, Lena.
       Title:  Fragments of archaic Crete : archaeological studies on time and space
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 4th floor
 Call Number:  DF221.C8 S55 2008
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:
       Title:  Athenian Agora : new perspectives on an ancient site
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 4th floor
 Call Number:  Folio DF287.A23 A84 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Monroe, Christopher Mountfort, 1963-
       Title:  Scales of fate : trade, tradition, and transformation in the eastern Mediterranean, ca. 1350-1175 BCE
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 4th floor
 Call Number:  DS62.23 .M66 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Lemos, T. M. (Tracy Maria)
       Title:  Marriage gifts and social change in ancient Palestine, 1200 BCE to 200 CE
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 2nd floor
 Call Number:  GT2774.5.P19 L46 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Van Laer, Sophie.
       Title:  Preverbation en latin : etude des preverbes ad-, in-, ob- et per- dans la poesie republicaine et augusteenne
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 3rd floor
 Call Number:  PA2137 .V36 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------
      Author:  Petsalis-Diomidis, Alexia.
       Title:  Truly beyond wonders : Aelius Aristides and the cult of Asklepios
     Edition:
    Location:  'Main 3rd floor
 Call Number:  PA3874.A7 P48 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------