SPEC Acquisitions

SPEC acquisitions are transactions through which the NYPL Research Libraries take ownership of materials. Acquisitions consist of one or more objects. A single acquisition can contain objects that are part of one or more collections, or individual objects that are not part of a collection. Multiple acquisitions can comprise a single collection.

SPEC contains acquisition records for:

  • All special collections acquisitions since SPEC’s adoption for acquisition management in 2021
  • Most special collections acquisitions since 2014 and select older acquisitions input retroactively
  • All Manuscripts and Archives Division acquisitions since 1994

To find an acquisition navigate to the Acquisitions search interface by clicking on Find / propose an acquisition or My Acquisition List in the Acquisitions section of the SPEC landing page.

Use the available search fields at the top of the Acquisitions search interface individually or in combination. Using multiple fields creates a Boolean AND search, narrowing down search results. Click on the Search button to execute the search. Click on the Clear button to reset all search parameters.

Results are grouped by status and sorted by the date of the last recorded status change. Click on the acquisition name to navigate to the Acquisition Summary interface to view or edit the acquisition record.

Clicking on the acquisition name anywhere it is clickable in SPEC will navigate to the acquisition record.

My Acquisitions List found on the SPEC landing page and the Acquisitions search interface navigates to a filtered list of acquisitions, grouped by acquisition status, based on the role and division of the user.

The Show All button, which displays all acquisitions in the system in the results list, is available to Preservation and Collections Processing admin staff.

Information about the acquisitions in the search results can be exported using the Export (CSV) button in the lower right corner of the Acquisitions search interface.

Creating and Editing Acquisition Records

Acquisition records can be created by clicking + button in the upper right of the Acquisitions search interface. This opens the Edit Proposal / Acquisition Record form. This form can also be accessed to edit an existing acquisition by clicking the pencil and paper icon in the upper right corner of the Acquisition Summary interface.

The Edit Proposal / Acquisition Record form allows the curator to input essential information about an acqusition. Many elements of the acquisition proposal are requried before an acquisition can be submitted in SPEC. See Critical Information, Inventory, Attachments, Contacts, Locations and Deliveries for more information. Changes input into this form are saved automatically. Navigate back from the Edit Proposal / Acquisition Record form by clicking the < Acquisition Summary button in the upper left corner.

Every acquisition record has a unique numerical value assigned by SPEC at the time of its creation. This automatically generated Acquisition ID is not editable and can be viewed in the header of the Acquisition Summary interface.

The Acquisition Summary provides an overview of a single acquisition record. In addition to displaying the information input by a curator in the Edit Proposal / Acquisition Record form, the Acquisition Summary displays the acquisition’s Status along the approval process, PCP notes, the Activity and Message Logs, Resource Impact, and, for received acquisitions, associated SPEC Collections and SPEC Projects.

For most division staff, edit access and some information, such as links to documentation folders and price, are limited by the curatorial division(s) assigned to a user’s account.