Book Acquisitions: Library Slice of Life

The Niels Bohr Library & Archives has a thorough Collection Development Policy, but how we interpret it and enact it can change from year to year. We can’t control what books are published or available on the rare book market. However, we can control what we spend our book budget on, and it’s interesting to take a look back and see if we met our goals of collecting more diversely and broadly than in years past.

Even more chaotically than purchases, most of our acquisitions are via donation, which are entirely unpredictable. Additionally, 2023 was a pretty unusual year for the Library, but so far every year in this decade has been unusual, so maybe unusual is the new normal. But in 2023 we were without a cataloger for ¾ of the year AND dealing with a huge office clean-up (the office clean-up to end all office clean-ups, as everyone in the building had to empty their offices) so we were inundated with the books that have been lying around people’s offices since the early internet era (sorry netscape navigator tutorials, we tossed you) as well as the newer books that people at the American Institute of Physics collected for their work more recently.

As a result we thought it would be fun to view the past year of collection development through a series of graphs.

First up is a look at our purchases from 2023, both new and rare books. This is not a comprehensive look at our purchases by any means, we assigned tags based on subjects or the more subjective “why” we purchased a book.

We’re quite happy to see that after astronomy the category “Underrepresented in STEM” was almost 18% of our purchasing. This category includes books by and about women like the 1890 Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures by Arabella Buckley and Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind by Kathryn Neeley. It also includes intersectional works like Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA by Duchess Harris and Making Black Girls Count in Math Education: A Black Feminist Vision for Transformative Teaching by Nicole Joseph. Also featured are books by and about Indigenous people and scientists, like a biography of Mary Golda Ross, a Cherokee Aerospace Engineer. This is one of the targets of our recent collection development so we’re happy we’re dedicating so much of our purchasing towards these topics and authors.

Physics history (included in 3 categories: pre-19th, 19th, and 20th centuries) is an obvious target and goes up even further if you include Nuclear History and War which was such a large topic we broke it out. Less obvious, but no less important topics for collection are Science for Kids and Science and the Arts where we purchased books about science fiction, poetry, and visual art. We also had a lot of fun tracking down and purchasing a number of the Miss Pickerell Series on physics related topics (more to come on those later I’m sure).

Donations have a totally different breakdown in topics, mostly because they tend to be older books that have been sitting around in people’s homes and offices for decades. Mid-century modern is not just a stylish look for homes, we also see it a lot in our donated books. Except for this year! However, until we catalog our donations it’s hard to get a snapshot of what we’ve received. Here you can see our cataloger actually tackled a lot of the AIP office cleanouts and donations of more modern books from Physics Today, which skews the data to some interesting places. More kids and arts books! Lots of general History of Science and Nuclear History and a significant chunk of philosophy. But we’re not missing out on those textbooks and scientific monographs either.

Here you can see that our purchases tend to be either very contemporary or quite antique. The oldest donated book we cataloged in 2023 was from all the way back in 1894, but the oldest one we purchased was from 1729, about a century and a half older than the oldest donated book.

We thought it would be fun to see the whole span of books that were purchased in 2023. This list does not include books donated to us in 2023. While donated books are important and interesting in their own right, purchased books, unlike donations, reflect our intentional selection; usually we select books in order to meet a collection development goal and/or to respond to a recommendation (you can recommend us books at this Suggest a book purchase link! ), though sometimes serendipity and following a trail of interest can lead to a book purchase.

What follows is a list of all of the purchased books, with their title, author, and year organized from oldest to newest, and then we have images and further details about a few of our favorite acquisitions this year. Click on “List of all books purchased in 2023" below to see the list.

List of all books purchased in 2023

Author	Title	Publication Date
Harris, John	ASTRONOMICAL DIALOGUES BETWEEN A GENTLEMAN AND A LADY: WHEREIN THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPHERE, USES OF THE GLOBES, AND THE ELEMENTS OF ASTRONOMY AND GEOGRAPHY ARE EXPLAIN’D; IN A PLEASANT, EASY, AND FAMILIAR WAY. WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMOUS INSTRUMENT CALLED THE ORRERY	1729
Mills, John	An Essay on the Weather; with Remarks on the Shepherd of Banbury’s Rules for Judging of It’s Changes; and Directions for Preserving Lives and Buildings from the Fatal Effects of Lightening	1773
Pontecoulant, Philippe Gustave Doulcet de	Memoire sur la Partie des Coefficiens des Grandes Inegalites de Jupiter et de Saturne, qui Dependent du Carre des Forces Perturbatrices. Extract.	1829
Lindelof, Lorentz Leonard	Inclinationis poli ad speculam astronomicam Helsingforsiensem investigatio, ex azimuthis stellarum verticem prope praetereuntium theodolito observatis ducta. . ..	1849
Chalmers, Thomas	Discourses on the Christian Revelation viewed in connexion with the Modern Astronomy with others of a kindred character.	1852
Herschel, John	Meteorology	1861
Mohn, Henrik	Om kometbanernes indbyrdes beliggenhed. Besvarelse af Universitetets Prisopgave for 1860 . . .	1861
Fitzroy, Robert	The weather book: a manual of practical meteorology	1863
Chickering, Francis	Cloud Crystals, a snowflake album	1864
Hobson, Benjamin	Hakubutsu shimpen. 3 vols.	1872
United States Naval Observatory	A subject-index to the publications of the United States Naval Observatory, 1845-1875.	1879
Thomson, William (Lord Kelvin)	Notes of Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light	1884
Buckley, Arabella	Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures	1890
Flammarion, Camille	Astronomie Populaire; Description Generale du Ciel.	1890
Roberts, Isaac	A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star-Clusters and Nebulae, together with information concerning the instruments and the methods employed in the pursuit of celestial photography.	1893
Howe, Herbert	A Study of the Sky	1896
Hildebrandsson, H.	Les bases de la météorologie dynamique historique	1898/1900
Dolmage, Cecil	Astronomy of To-day	1909
Chant, Clarence Augustus	Our Wonderful Universe	1928
Abbot, Charles Greeley	Absorption Lines of the Infra-Red Solar Specturm	1929
West, William	Acoustical Engineering	1932
Lee, Oliver Justin	Beyond Yonder	1939
MacGregor, Ellen	Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars	1951
Babina, Jose	La Evolucion del Pensamiento Cientifico en la Argentina	1954
Hlavaty, Vaclav	Geometry of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory	1957
Pirie, N.W.	The Biology of Space Travel. Edited by N. W. Pirie	1961
MacGregor, Ellen and Dora Pantell	Miss Pickerell on the Moon	1965
Hagihara, Yusuke	Celestial Mechanics	1970
Proctor, Richard	Wages and Wants of Science Workers. 1876	1970
Wood, Elizabeth	Science from Your Airplane Window	1975
O’Neill, Gerard K.	THE HIGH FRONTIER: Human Colonies in Space	1977
Westman, R. S.	Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution: Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar March 9, 1974	1977
MacGregor, Ellen	Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter	1980
MacGregor, Ellen and Dora Pantell	Miss Pickerell Tackles the Energy Crisis	1980
Homet, Jean-Marie	Astronomie et Astronomes en Provence 1680-1730.	1982
Corliss, William R.	STARS, GALAXIES, COSMOS	1987
Oldroyd, David	The Arch of Knowledge: An Introductory Study of the History of the Philosophy and Methodology of Science	1989
Percy, John	Variable Star Research: An International Perspective	1992
Schaaf, Larry	Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot, and the Invention of Photography	1992
Henrard, J.	Impact of Modern Dynamics in Astronomy. Proceedings of the IAU Colloquium 172 held in Namur, Belgium, July 1998	1998
Schaffer, Simon	Picturing Science, Producing Art	1998
Hoffman, Darleane	The Transuranium People: The Inside Story	2000
Neeley, Kathryn	Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind	2001
Neeley, Kathryn	Mary Somerville Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind	2001
Somerville, Mary	Queen of Science: Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville	2001
Baym, Nina	American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences: Styles of Affiliation	2002
Stephenson, F. Richard	Historical Supernovae and their Remnants	2002
Medina, John Fitzgerald	Faith, Physics, and Psychology: Rethinking Society and the Human Spirit	2006
Robinson, Janet	The Stargazer of Hardwicke: The Life and Work of Thomas William Webb	2006
Holmes, Keith	Black Inventors, Crafting Over 200 Years of Success	2008
Bloom, Joshua S.	What Are Gamma-Ray Bursts?	2011
Barnes, E.J.	Caroline’s Catalog	2012
Kasting, James F.	How to Find a Habitable Planet	2012
Adler, Charles L.	Wizards, Aliens, and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction	2014
Glazer, A. (ed.)	Crystal Clear: The Autobiographies of Sir Lawrence and Lady Bragg	2015
Robinson, Andrew	Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity	2015
Chambers, John	From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System	2017
Losure, Mary	Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal’d	2017
Melvin, Leland	Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s Story of Chasing Grit, Grace, and Second Chances	2017
Harris, Duchess	Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA	2017
Brentjes, Sonja	Teaching and Learning the Sciences in Islamicate Societies (800-1700)	2018
Feke, Jacqueline	Ptolemy’s Philosophy: Mathematics as a Way of Life	2018
Roy, William	Hedy Lamarr: An Incredible Life	2018
Chapman, Kit	Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table	2019
Gowin, Emmet	Nevada Test Site	2019
Gunderson, Laura	The Half-Life of Marie Curie	2019
Ivezic, Zeljko et al	Statistics, Data Mining, and Machine Learning in Astronomy: A Practical Python Guide for the Analysis of Survey Data, Updated Edition	2019
Kennefick, Daniel	No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein’s Theory of Relativity	2019
Lambert, Franklin	Vous avez dit sabbat de sorcières? La singulière histoire des premiers Conseils Solvay	2019
Maor, Eli	The Pythagorean Theorem	2019
McLeish, Tom	The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art	2019
Quinn, Helen	The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter	2019
Richeson, David S.	Tales of Impossibility: The 2000-Year Quest to Solve the Mathematical Problems of Antiquity	2019
Schotte, Margaret	Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill 1550-1800	2019
Werner, Michael	More Things in the Heavens: How Infrared Astronomy Is Expanding Our View of the Universe	2019
Cointreau, Maya	The Girl Who Could Rock the Moon - An Inspirational Tale about Mary G. Ross and the Magic of STEM	2019
Canales, Jimena	Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science	2020
Fleming, James	First Woman: Joanne Simpson and the Tropical Atmosphere	2020
Gordin, Michael D.	Einstein in Bohemia	2020
Guftfreund, Hanoch	Einstein on Einstein: Autobiographical and Scientific Reflections	2020
Masco, Joseph	The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post–Cold War New Mexico	2020
McCray, W. Patrick	Making Art Work How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture	2020
Schweizer, Linda	Cosmic Odyssey: How Intrepid Astronomers at Palomar Observatory Changed Our View of the Universe	2020
Weller, Melissa	A Good Bake: The Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads a Home	2020
Wood, Gillen D’Arcy	Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice	2020
Brink, Lars	Geoffrey Chew: Architect of the Bootstrap	2021
Cavendish, Margaret	Cavendish: Philosophical Letters, Abridged	2021
Cutright, Patricia, ed.	Native Women Changing Their Worlds	2021
Heilbron, J.	The Ghost of Galileo: In a forgotten painting from the English Civil War	2021
Kim, Eun-Ji Amy	Integrating Indigenous and Western Education in Science Curricula: Relationships at Play	2021
Ouzounian, Gascia	Stereophonica Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts	2021
Sorell, Traci	Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer	2021
Wellock, Thomas R.	Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk	2021
Benedict, Marie	Her Hidden Genius	2022
Halpern, Nicole Yunger	Quantum Steampunk	2022
Joseph, Nicole	Making Black Girls Count in Math Education A Black Feminist Vision for Transformative Teaching	2022
KASSENOVA, TOGZHAN	Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb	2022
Mody, Cyrus	The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s	2022
Oreskes, Naomi	Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know About the Ocean	2022
Thiele, June	Jerry C. Elliott High Eagle	2022
Trimble, Virginia, ed.	The Sky is for Everyone	2022
Hiebert, Miriam	The Uranium Club	2023
Moynihan, Matt and Alfred Bortz	Fusion’s Promise	2023
Lockyer, Norman	Astronomy of To-day	n.d.

In no particular order, here are some of our favorite acquisitions from the year. Click on the book image to see it bigger:

The Electroform Unified Field Theory 2nd ed. by James A. Green, 1995

Who knew giraffes and particle physics go together!! This delightful giraffe print book binding of The Electroform Unified Field Theory 2nd ed. by James A. Green , 1995, celebrates the author’s memories of constellations in the autumn night sky. It is dedicated to the Physics Today Book Review, who donated this to NBLA this summer.

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Astronomical Dialogues Between A Gentleman And A Lady: Wherein The Doctrine Of The Sphere, Uses The Globes, And The Elements Of Astronomy And Geography Are Explained in a Pleasant, Easy, and Familiar way. With a Description of the Famous Orrery. By John Harris. 1729.

This book is a fictional dialogue between a gentleman and a lady and is intended to provide an explanation of astronomy and geography to people unfamiliar with the subject.

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Hakubutsu shimpen by Benjamin Hobson, 1872.

Benjamin Hobson was a British missionary doctor who spent two decades (1839-59) in China. Hakubutsu shimpen is divided into three parts. The first, on physics, has sections on topology, heat, water, light and electricity. The second part is dedicated to astronomy; the third, entitled “Outlines of Birds and Beasts,” is devoted to natural history. All the parts are illustrated. This Japanese versions of Hobson’s works appeared during a critical time in Japanese history, when the country ended its isolationist foreign policy and began opening its ports to Western trade. (from bookseller Jeremy Norman)

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Notes of Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) 1884.

This is the first edition of a “major monument of Victorian Science.” Kelvin’s lectures at Johns Hopkins University were recorded in shorthand by A.S. Hathaway, a fellow of the university, and subsequently transcribed for a small edition printed by the then-novel papyrographic process. Invented around 1872, the papyrograph was the first stencil duplicating method. This is why this volume appears handwritten! (from bookseller Type Punch Matrix)

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Cloud Crystals: A Snow Flake Album by Francis Chickering, 1864.

First widely circulated American work on the crystallography of the snowflake.

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Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter by Ellen MacGregor, 1953

We added four new Miss Pickerell books to our collection this year: Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars (1951), Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter (1953), Miss Pickerell on the Moon (1965), and Miss Pickerell Tackles the Energy Crisis (1980). This children’s science fiction series was created by American children’s author and librarian Ellen MacGregor in 1951 with Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars. After her death in 1954, there series was continued by educator Dora Pantell in the spirit of previous books, featuring the scientific issues and themes of the day. The Miss Pickerell books featured accurate science for children, but please note that Miss Pickerell takes her cow to Mars in Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars.

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Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures by Arabella B. Buckley, 1890.

This volume is a sequel to Buckley’s Fairytale Land of Science. From the preface: “It travels over a wide field, pointing out a few of the marvelous facts which can be studied and enjoyed by the help of optical instruments… I hope some eager minds may be thus led to take up one of the branches of science opened out to us by magic glasses; while those who go no further will at least understand something of the hitherto unseen world which is now being studied by their help.” The “magic glasses” in question are detailed on the front cover: Telescope, Microscope, Spectroscope, Photo Camera, etc.