Hot Off The Press: The 2025 Book Inventory is Complete!

Sam Lewis rehouses delicate books in the Kiplinger Research Library. The titles remain available for researchers to examine in the library but are now better protected in back-of-house storage than they had been on browsable shelves. Photo by Anne McDonough

Book Inventory By The Numbers

Catalog records edited: 5590

Fragile books preserved: 305

Total library staff: 2

The ideal cadence for performing a full research library inventory is once every five years. In reality, due to staffing and time constraints, inventories usually happen every seven to ten years. (Indeed, the DC History Center’s last book inventory occurred just before moving back to the renovated Carnegie Library in 2019). As Library Services Coordinator and Librarian for the Kiplinger Research Library, Sam Lewis and I went into 2025 with a multi-tiered plan to inventory all of the books in the Printed Materials collection. We had anticipated the project would take us about 18 months, but we managed to finish in only 11 months.

There are a variety of reasons why periodic inventories are important, especially in a browsable collection like ours. An inventory is used to identify, at the most basic level, which books are missing from the collection and rectify any discrepancies in our records. It is also an opportunity to put our shelves back in order (a common reason for a missing book in a research library is that it was shelved incorrectly!) and to physically handle every book to identify whether it needs repair or replacement.

Sam and I developed three top-level objectives:

1. To know and record the complete title list held by the DC History Center, including duplicates and formerly uncatalogued books.
2. To accurately record the location of every volume in our collection.
3. To identify copies in need of repair or replacement by available duplicates.

To accomplish these goals without significantly interrupting library services, our workplan had to be highly detailed and very specific. As a result, we accomplished the following sub-objectives:

• The list of duplicate copies is complete.
  • All catalog records with duplicates are now marked with “[number of] copies” (in Notes section). We replaced a handful of books with an available duplicate copy if the copy was in better condition.

• The catalog includes the condition rating for every volume (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor, Very Poor, Bad, Fragile, Very Fragile). We included additional condition notes in some records (e.g.: loose pages, detached spine).
  • Triage and isolation of fragile volumes is complete. We placed Fragile and Very Fragile condition books in protective envelopes and rehoused them in onsite storage in the Folios section. They are still available on researcher request but are not on the library shelves in order to preserve and prolong their lives.
• Location for all books in the collection have been accurately documented.
  

  Fragile and Very Fragile volumes rehoused in onsite storage. Photo by Anne McDonough

• We also:
  • Streamlined and corrected copyright date formatting for all volumes;
  • Corrected object IDs for books with updated LOC numbers;
  • Identified books that were previously uncatalogued but had become part of the collection;
  • Identified books to re-categorize as pamphlets (P numbers rather than LOC numbers); and
  • Identified volumes/editions and clarified this in the record. Now the record clearly indicates whether there are multiple volumes, identical copies, or similar editions of the same title.

We are very proud of having summited this enormous undertaking, and we look forward to providing better library services due to our improved records and the clarity we have now. We plan to complete the next inventory in 2030.