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Dear Subscriber,
Among the many biennials and triennials in North America and abroad that our staff monitors in order to obtain their publications is the National Design Triennial, organized by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York. In its fourth edition (see Worldwide 33349), currently on view until January, the Triennial asks the question "Why Design Now?" and examines the crucial role design plays in solving some of the most urgent problems in the world today. Assuming a global perspective, the Triennial presents key developments across design disciplines through eight themes: energy, mobility, community, materials, prosperity, health, communication and simplicity. Contemporary design combines functionality and aesthetics, often blurring the line between art and industry. The difficulty in classifying objects created by artists and designers into the traditional categories "art" and "design" is the central topic in Le Fabuleux Destin du quotidian/The Fabulous Destiny of the Quotidian, the catalogue of an exhibition held in Grand-Hornu, Belgium (Worldwide 33218). Rather than focus on the differences, the show looks at the complex relationship between artists and designers in order to discover what unites them. The Design Center at Philadelphia University makes a more conscious attempt at bringing art and design together. In Lace in Translation (Worldwide 72733), it brought together three art/design teams - two Dutch and one Canadian - and commissioned each of them to create new, site-specific installations inspired by the Design Center's historic lace collection. The results are unexpected: delicate, traditional patterns executed in industrial materials. |
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New Titles |
View all the new titles that arrived in June here. |
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Stock Item Numbers
Like many other companies, Worldwide Books assigns a number to its stock items. Each title that we carry and include in our online database is assigned a 6-digit number. These item numbers serve not only as unique identifiers for inventory and ordering purposes. They are also a relative indicator of when a book was published, they indicate whether or not a given title is a museum publication, and they can be used as parameters in combination with the < and > operators on our Advanced Search page to narrow search results. The following distinct number ranges are currently used for our regular stock items: 000001-049999: This range is reserved exclusively for our Main Selections, significant exhibition catalogues likely to be of central importance to most academic libraries supporting broad undergraduate and graduate programs in art and art history, as well as noteworthy exhibition catalogues that cover more specialized topics or less prominent artists. The lower numbers represent older catalogues, dating all the way back to the late 1960s, while the most recent titles have been assigned numbers in the 033000 range; 050000-089999: This range is reserved for museum publications that we have designated as Additional Selections, including smaller exhibition catalogues, collection catalogues and other museum and gallery publications unrelated to exhibitions. As with the Main Selections, the lower item numbers indicate older titles, while the most recent publications have been assigned numbers in the 072000 range;
090000-199999: This range is reserved for trade and university-press books on art, architecture, photography and design that are not related to exhibitions and that are available through American publishers and distributors, including titles published outside of the U.S. that are distributed in North America through a U.S.-based publisher or distributor. Again, the lower numbers indicate older titles, while the most recent titles have been assigned numbers in the 140000 range.
Other number ranges used for non-regular stock items with limited availability include:
400000-499999: In the process of reviewing new publications, our staff judges many exhibition catalogues and other museum publications to be inappropriate for general listing. This decision does not necessarily indicate a judgment of a book's relative quality or importance, but may reflect a recognition of its limited availability, prohibitive cost, or other problematic factors. Many of these publications are extremely noteworthy, and are included in our database as non-regular stock items;
700000-799999: This number range is reserved for certain special order items and reference records for publications that were cancelled, and does not represent actual stock items;
800000-899999: This range is exclusively reserved for publications distributed by Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P.), although many of their titles eventually end up as regular stock items and take on stock numbers in other ranges;
900000-999999: This range of numbers is reserved for copies of books that are alternate editions of regular stock items, often so designated because their language of text, format or binding differs from our stock edition.
Please note that many of our title records are initially created before we see the books, based on advance publication information provided by publishers and distributors. This is true for most titles published or distributed by trade or university presses, all of which are initially assigned stock numbers in the 090000-399999 range, as well as for most D.A.P.-distributed titles, which are initially assigned stock numbers in the 800000 range. Once a new trade or university-press title has been released and we have had the opportunity to examine it, it will typically be re-assigned a new stock number in the 000000-049999 or 050000-089999 range if it is a museum publication, while non-museum publications will retain their original numbers. Many listed D.A.P.-distributed publications will eventually be assigned new numbers, in the 000000-049999 or 500000-089999 range in the case of museum publications, or in the 090000-399999 range in the case of non-museum publications. D.A.P. titles that we choose not to list in our regular monthly offerings permanently retain their original number in the 800000 range on our Web site.
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When setting up and maintaining an approval plan in consultation with a library client, Worldwide makes every effort to minimize the potential for returned titles by carefully designing a selection profile that closely matches the library's collection-development needs, and, if necessary, modifying the profile as those needs evolve. In general we are quite successful in fulfilling our customers' requirements, as is evidenced by an overall return rate in the approval-plan program of less than 5%. Nevertheless, the need to occasionally return items from approval shipments is an inevitable part of the plan experience for many of our subscribing libraries-usually because of duplication-and in recognition of this reality we offer unrestricted return privileges. Any title sent on approval may be returned for any reason without pre-notification or authorization.
We offer these guidelines for expediting the returns process:
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Returned books should be carefully packed with sufficient padding; we cannot issue credit for books that are damaged in transit from the library.
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Parcels should be addressed to Worldwide Returns at our Ithaca address (1001 West Seneca Street, Ithaca, NY 14850) and sent via U.P.S., Fedex, or other trackable means.
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Please include a copy of the original invoice with the returned items underlined or highlighted. It is not necessary to give the reason for a return, especially if the item being returned simply duplicates a volume already in your collection. However, we always welcome feedback about selections that a library considers to be out of scope or inappropriate, as having this information enables us to more effectively make plan assignments, and ultimately helps to eliminate the need for similar returns in the future.
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If a book is being returned due to damage or defect, please clearly indicate the nature and location of the problem, and specify whether you would like a replacement copy or would prefer to be credited for the return.
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Unwanted approval items should be returned within 90 days of invoicing. Invoices may be "short-paid" by deducting the cost of returned items from the invoice total. However, if an invoice has already been paid in full, or if short-paying is not an option allowed by your institution, we will send a credit memo upon receipt of the returned books that may be applied toward a future invoice or submitted for a cash refund.
Please note that since the vast majority of approval-plan returns are made on a discretionary basis and involve titles that are within the scope of an agreed-upon plan profile, shipping costs are generally the responsibility of the library. In the case of defective items or other unusual circumstances (e.g., if a title clearly falls outside the library's selection profile or is deemed unequivocally inappropriate for its collection), we will gladly assume the return shipping cost by sending a U.P.S. call tag. Please e-mail any such requests to David Fogel, Approval Plan Manager. Plan subscribers should also contact David if they feel that their plan profile requires refinements or modifications, or if it is apparent that certain profile parameters or restrictions have been misunderstood. |
 About Us
For nearly 50 years, Worldwide Books has served academic, museum and public libraries as a specialized source for art exhibition catalogues issued by museums and galleries throughout the world. For the past two decades Worldwide has also offered comprehensive coverage of new books on art, architecture, photography and design published by hundreds of leading American trade and university presses. Serving as a centralized source for a wide range of scholarly art books and exhibition catalogues, Worldwide is uniquely positioned to assist and guide art libraries in careful and efficient collection development.
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