SUNY Shared Collection

A comprehensive collection of university press books should be available to Stony Brook faculty and students. Toward this goal the university center libraries have launched a pilot project creating a shared collection jointly owned by all SUNY Center (Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, SBU) libraries. While the Stony Brook libraries have collaborated with other libraries in purchasing electronic material, this the first time we have tried such a model for physical items. This year each of the four libraries contributed $10,000 toward the purchase of all the 2006 imprints of eight major university presses. The presses selected are: Michigan, Chicago, Duke, Harvard, Yale, Minnesota, Washington, and Cornell. For our contribution of $10,000 we will have access to $40,000 worth of material. The 2006 imprints will be held at Albany and Binghamton. Stony Brook and Buffalo will house 2007 imprints. Cataloging records will be entered into local catalogs and books off-campus will be requested through interlibrary loan. Faculty and graduate students will have a three-month loan period. If the pilot succeeds, researchers will have easy access to a larger pool of research monographs than Stony Brook alone could afford. The experience for Stony Brook patrons will be similar to having the books in our own stacks.