European and “European” : Collections and Academic Liaison and the countries our books come from

On By europeancollectionsIn New Acquisitions, The Department of Collections and Academic Liaison

What it means to be European has been in the thoughts of many recently, including many in our department.  The issue of the term “European” has long been a thought-provoking one for us on the work side too.  Our department, Collections and Academic Liaison, was formed a few years ago from two departments: English Accessions and European Collections and Cataloguing.  This blog was set up under the auspices of the latter, and the name of the blog – European languages across borders – hints at the tension felt then between the department’s name and its work.  While we collect largely in languages with roots in European countries (including English, since CAL was created), our collecting activity has always been global.  Portuguese material, for example, comes not only from Portugal but also from Brazil and Mozambique and more.

As part of an ongoing piece of work on subject-specific collection development policies, I have been gathering data from our library management system about the geographical spread of our purchases, focusing chiefly on hard copy purchases.  It is a rather fiddly but satisfying job.  In the last two years, the Collections and Academic Liaison department has collected from over 110 different countries/territories.  The top 15 countries in terms of numbers of titles collected over this period are: France, Italy, Germany, USA, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Poland, Brazil, Argentina, the UK, Ukraine, Switzerland, and Chile.

Given that the UL is a legal deposit library, why are UK publications in the top 15?  A few of these would be titles which were expected under legal deposit but never came and have had to be purchased (note that for physical deposits, our claim to a book expires a year after its publication).  Many will be titles which have been provided under legal deposit legislation but through electronic legal deposit (“ELD”; the titles in our catalogue which refer to access through “designated PCs”).  Requests for our department to buy more easily accessed copies of ELD books, chiefly as bought ebooks but sometimes as print copies, are on the rise and are the subject of a new purchase policy.

Below are all the countries we have purchased from in our department, in groups by number and listed alphabetically within each group.  Note that the country/territory names come from the standardised MARC lists (used by libraries internationally and available here).

>500 (chiefly in the thousands)

Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, US

100-500

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, India, Netherlands, Paraguay, Peru, Switzerland, UK, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela

20-100

Algeria, Australia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cabo Verde, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greece, Honduras, Ireland, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden

>20

Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, French Guiana, Ghana, Guadeloupe, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hawaii, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Martinique, Mauritius, Moldova, Monaco, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Réunion, Romania, Rwanda, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Vatican City, Zimbabwe

In the final group are several countries from which our department has bought only a single title.  These books are listed below, with links to iDiscover.

Do please get in touch if you have queries about anything in this blog post.

Images are of recent purchases.

Mel Bach (hlgb2@cam.ac.uk)

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