Collection Description

Standard Version

For this assignment, you will write an essay describing a collection of between 50 and 10,000 volumes.

You will write four sections: the collection description (section 1), two middle sections (any two of sections 2, 3, and 4), and concluding thoughts (section 5). Each section should contain 200-400 words, for a total of at least 1200. Use Chicago NB style citation (PDF) to document your sources.

Choosing Your Collection

To do the assignment, you will need to be able to examine the collection. (Do not choose a collection that you remember but cannot currently access.) The collection can be personal; for example, you might choose the books you have collected in your own room. The collection can also be institutional; Grinnell's campus contains many collections of books. You can even use the College's library collections, though you should choose a focused subset of the library such as one of the examples listed on the libraries' collections page. The collection can be paper or digital (or both), as long as it is the appropriate size.

Section 1: Collection Contents

First, introduce your reader to the basics, such as the contents and location of the collection. Then, use this section to answer questions such as these: What principles of inclusion created the collection? What principles of exclusion created the absences in the collection? Are there striking exceptions to these general principles?

If someone else created the collection--the libraries, an office on campus, someone in your family--you may want to ask them questions that will help you compose this section.

Section 2: Material Location and Supports

Use this section to describe how the collection is stored and supported. For collections of printed books, describe the shelves, cases, or surfaces that the collection occupies. Many of those objects will seem ordinary, but they are worth your attention! For example, how does a collection operate differently if it is stored on a flat surface such as a desktop or vertically on a shelf? How do institutional shelves (such as those in the rooms of residence halls) differ from shelves in individual homes or apartments? What choices in building material supports (size, materiality, joining) affect their ability to house books?

Section 3: Organizational Logic

Using Petroski's appendix (the assigned reading) as a starting point, describe the logic of the collection's organization. The logic might be formal, as in a collection housed by a library. (If so, learn something about the details of the classification system and how it applies to the collection.) Or it might be informal, as in "When I complete an assignment for class, I move the book from the desktop to the left end of the shelf." If you write this section, be sure to quote and cite Petroski.

Section 4: Stability and Change

Every collection of books involves some balance of stability and change. Describe the ways that your chosen collection encourages stability. Those ways could be organizational (as in a formal classification system that will keep the collection ordered over time), physical (as in having a limit on bookshelf space), or something else. Then describe the ways that the collection allows for change--by adding books, subtracting them, or otherwise changing the nature of the collection.

Section 5: Concluding Thoughts

Use this section to reflect on the previous sections of your description. What have you learned about your chosen collection, and how do you now think differently about other collections of books as a result of examining that one?

Extra Version

The Extra Version of this assignment involves a revision and expansion of the initial, complete assignment after I respond to that version. To complete the Extra Version,

• Add whatever section of the assignment you did not choose do in the first version.
• Revise your collection description to build on the conversation we have had about the first version and to engage with at least two additional sources. Those sources can be scholarly or popular and may include works such as these:
• Denise Gigante, Book Madness (most likely the later chapters--available electronically through the libraries)
• Other content from Petroski's The Book on the Bookshelf
• Anakana Schofield, “What We Gain from Keeping Books” (background: "Marie Kondo Organizes a Bookshelf")
• Add a final "Coda" section of 200-400 words explaining how you undertook your revision process. Be sure to make your changes visible in the Extra Version, so I can see what parts of your work are new.