Hello - and thank you to everyone who responded. The consensus was pretty much that it depended on context. Here is a summary of the views made:
When is a book not a book?
1) it is archival if it contains permanent original markings and there were some important examples of famous writing in the margins of a book.
2) If it has been amended to make it unique then catalogue it as a document not a book.
3) it depends upon the context of the book - if it was a one-off volume and had no other related material, it would belong in the library.
4) If a book comes in with an archive collection, even if it has no marginalia and nothing to connect it specifically with the person/institution whose archives it came with, it is worth ensuring there's a cross reference to the collection before it is hived off and put it in the library, if the book itself falls within your collecting policy. If there is no reason to keep it either as an intrinsic part of the archive collection or because it's a book you'd want in your library, presumably you'd discard it. BUT if there are marginalia which make it an intrinsic part of the archive collection even if it isn't a book you'd want in the library, it would stay with the archive collection.
5) if a book is both an intrinsic part of the archive collection and a book you'd want to put in your library the archive collection should take precedence, with a cross reference to the library
What about archival inserts?
1) If a book had an archival non-permanent feature eg a letter inserted loosely then remove the letter, note on the catalogue/accession register in which book and between which pages it was found but not treat the book as an archive.
2) In the case of insertions (letters/pressed flowers/photographs) these are removed and catalogued as archives, and cross-referenced to the book.
3) Note the existence of the annotations in the Notes field of the book catalogue record, and should the annotations have a contextual link with related archive papers, note the existence of the book in the archive catalogue record. As long as the books are already held in a controlled access special collection, there is little advantage to treating them as archives.
BUT
If you have a good cataloguing system why not have it as both, ie on the library catalogue and the archival one, just stored appropriately in the Archives.
Hope that helps
Alison Scott
Archivist
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
9 Queen Street
Edinburgh
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Scotland
UK
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