Suggest a Book!

New Books Area Image

New Arrivals shelves on the First Floor of the Library

Is there a book that you borrow repeatedly from Interlibrary Loan (and wish that we held a copy here at the GC)? Is there something that you can’t believe isn’t already held at CUNY? A title that’s about to be released that should be on our radar? There’s a form for that!

You might like to bookmark our suggestion form–you can use it at any time to recommend a title to your librarian. When you complete the form, your departmental librarian reviews the details of your request and should respond to your inquiry shortly.

We are most likely to order something that would be appealing to many people in your program (so think beyond your own dissertation research alone), and that is not already held at many CUNY campuses. See our Collections policies for more details.*

New Arrivals Area

When new books arrive, before they find their home in the stacks, they spend a short stay in our New Arrivals Area on the first floor across from the Circulation Desk. Here you can browse through all of the latest additions to our collection. These books may not be the most recently published items, but they are the items most recently added to the GC collection. Stop by to peruse whenever you have a minute–we add books to these shelves very often!

*A few Caveats

Right now we have chosen to focus on selecting print books for our collections because of the complicated nature of digital restrictions that come with many ebooks sold to libraries. Thus be aware that we are most likely to buy a recommended title in print.

We are also restricted by our budgets, many of which might be smaller than what a researcher might personally spend on their own collections in one year–know that we may not be able to accommodate requests for extremely costly items or we may need to save your request for our next budget cycle.

Adding items to our collections can also take TIME! The length of time for books to be cataloged and fully processed is often longer than one might anticipate; therefore if you need a book with urgency, we highly recommend a CLICs request or Interlibrary Loan (which is often the speediest way to access a book we do not already hold, especially for book chapters which can be delivered digitally).

Despite these boundaries, we are always glad to read your suggestions. If we aren’t able to add the book you recommend, we will happily investigate alternative modes to access with you!

Beyond Books

You can also suggest other types of materials (which are purchased more infrequently as budgets allow) and request new items be placed on reserve for classes taught at the Graduate Center.

About the Author

Alycia Sellie is the Associate Librarian for Collections at the Graduate Center Library.