McKillop Library has recently acquired the largest privately held collection of books and other materials related to Sinclair Lewis. Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was the first American author to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Lewis published over 25 novels, numerous short stories and shorter works. His books topped the best-seller lists of the day. The collection is also of interest because Lewis was a public figure and much involved with other writers of the period.

The collection was donated by Stephen R. Pastore, a book collector, bibliographer and Newport resident. It includes first editions of Lewis's works, foreign editions and translations, numerous magazines in which his short stories were originally published, playscripts, films based on his novels, critical and biographical works, photographs, theatre programs and other related items. The Library is in the process of cataloging the collection. The Pastore Sinclair Lewis Collection will be housed in the Library's Special Collection Room and will be available for use only within the Library.

The Library has recently subscribed to a book lease program known as the McNaughton Plan. A collection of 200 popular fiction and non-fiction titles should be in place by the end of February. Look for Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Scott Turow, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, and others, as these new books "visit" the Library for a limited period of time. The plan gives us all an opportunity to have bestsellers and popular books available. Most of the books will rotate into and out of the collection on a timetable of six months to a year. The library has the option to purchase those books which we wish to permanently keep in our collection. The books will be located on the first floor of the library in the "New Book" area to the left of the circulation desk. They will be identified by a distinctive label and will circulate for 4 weeks. ENJOY!

As part of 1999's millennium madness, I compared several of the “best books of the century” lists with the McKillop Library book collection. This was done for fun and to see if the library did have the books that various groups of people considered the "best of the century." I looked in detail at four lists. One was the Random House/Modern Library selection of 100 non-fiction titles, as well as their list of 100 fiction titles, both of which received a lot of negative press. In addition, I checked the list of 150 fiction titles prepared by librarians and a list of 100 titles developed at the Radcliffe Summer Publishing Institute. The Random House list was touted as being the list that one should have read, while the librarians’ list, published in Library Journal, was considered a list of books actually read. The list from the Radcliffe Summer Institute reflected the point of view of a "younger" generation. Random House did some well-publicized backtracking and published a second fiction list based on reader comments.

What is the point of these lists and do they really matter for us? Lists of this type are cultural markers. They are a way for us to connect to our time and place, and they make a statement about who we are. In addition to reviewing book lists, I reviewed other types of “best of the century” lists. Taking a look at the list of "Rhode Island High School Athletes" in a recent Providence Sunday Journal and Channel 10's five greatest storms of the century, it is interesting to note that we rate the “best” within our own lifetime and our individual experiences. As a 1960 graduate of a Rhode Island public high school, I recognized the names of only four of the "greatest athletes" while a family octogenarian didn't know any of them. Did you know that all of the great storms of the century happened after 1938 and the worst two were in the 1990's? This tells us more about the demographics of Channel 10 weather watchers than it does about the weather! The booklists reflect the same type of shared experiences--they are valuable because they are common to many of us. They are a quick way of checking how reflective our library collection is of late twentieth century culture.

How do the lists vary and where are they the same? A one-title demonstration will serve as an example. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was number one on the Library Journal list, number five on the Random House reader's list, number four on the Radcliffe list and did not appear on the "official" Random House list. This variation is typical of moving from list to list. Forty of the titles on the Library Journal list had been translated into film including To Kill a Mockingbird.

So how does McKillop Library rate? The Random House/Modern Library lists contained 100 titles of non-fiction, many of which were required undergraduate reading in previous generations. The library held 81 titles. The fiction titles from Random House contained a "board list" and a reader's list. We had 93 of the "Board " list; this is the list that was so heavily criticized in the press. The library collection has 72 of the 100 reader's titles; this pointed up our weakness in science fiction and fantasy titles. The librarian's list of 150 fiction titles found 131 or 89% on our shelves. The Radcliffe list, more contemporary in its selections, had 92 of 100 representatives here in the library.

Interestingly enough, many of the titles appear, not only on these lists, but also on most of the academic lists of titles we regularly check for collection development as well. We will purchase the missing titles from these lists, as they will give us a snapshot of popular culture at the end of the century.

There have been quite a few changes in Interlibrary Loan services over the past year. This article will update McKillop Library users on the many Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services now available.

Intra-HELIN Requests: Technically, requesting material from another HELIN library is not interlibrary loan. However, this distinction doesn't make sense to most library users so we'll discuss it here. Before joining the Higher Education Library Information Network (HELIN), if a student wanted a book or article from another institution, s/he went through Interlibrary Loan. This process included filling out an ILL form, submitting it electronically or handing a completed “yellow form” to the Reference staff and waiting at least two weeks for the material to arrive. With HELIN, getting a book may now take only 48 hours. Since becoming a member, we now have direct access to the collections of six other RI academic libraries. If you find a book you’d like in the HELIN on-line catalog, simply use the request button. Books ordered by way of HELIN generally arrive within 48 hours.