About 16,000 books are cataloged in the International Center of Photography (ICP) library, and Deirdre Donohue, the librarian, says there will be about 20,000 when all the library’s holdings are entered. The books are a source of inspiration for the thousands of students who take courses at the center’s school, and an important tool for the curatorial staff at the ICP museum. Most new books come into the library as donations, but Ms. Donohue also purchases between 20 and 25 books a month with the assistance of an acquisitions committee. With the holiday book-buying season upon us, I asked Ms. Donohue to recommend some photography books published in 2007 that had especially appealed to her.

A theme that ran through several of Ms. Donohue’s selections was books of “vernacular” or “found” photographs. These are pictures that were not taken by professional photographers for artistic or commercial purposes, but by ordinary folk for their own delight: snapshots. A strong trend in photographic circles for the last few years has been the “repurposing” of these anonymous photographs, considering them as if they were conscientious works of art or, at any rate, examining them for what they say about the sociology and psychology of the people who took them. Professional photographers have in turn adopted the snapshot look for their own aesthetic ends. The unifying element in the found photographs collected in “The Book of Shadows” (Fraenkel Gallery) is the shadows of the photographers. A trend of amateurs is to shoot with the sun behind them so that they cast a shadow forward, thereby including themselves in the picture. Jeffrey Fraenkel, who edited the book, recognizes the transformation of pedestrian subjects into something uncanny by the inclusion of these shadows. The corner of an ordinary tract house with the silhouette of the head of the photographer on the lawn; a woman seen from the waist down lifting the hem of her skirt to show her legs with the shadow of someone wearing a service cap on the sidewalk; lots of children posing as best they can for their parental shades: All of these are more interesting than it seems they ought to be.

“Strange and Singular” by Michael Abrams (Loosestrife Editions) not only has 140 pages of reproductions of found photographs, it has three such photographs tucked into the leaves. It is a varied and well-chosen collection, and reminds us of the intrinsically voyeuristic nature of looking at other people’s personal photographs by including several shots of women posing naked; presumably these were not meant to be seen by strangers. Found photographs not only raise critical questions about the intentions of the makers of the photographs, but about the experiences of the viewers as well.

“Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums” by Barbara Levine and Kirsten M. Jensen (Princeton Architectural Press) is a handsome volume of a specific category of found photographs. The book reproduces pictures from around the turn of the 20th century, when both photography and travel became easier and less expensive. Whole pages of the albums are shown so we see the pictures mounted with their accompanying inscriptions and comments, as well as travel memorabilia such as timetables, brochures, and menus. There is a sense of adventure about these extended voyages to exotic locales.

Ms. Donohue took one of the books she showed me from the display case at the entrance to the library where it was part of an exhibition of recent books by ICP graduates. “Czech Eden” (Aperture) was inspired by the photographs Matthew Monteith found at garage and rummage sales; they gave him insight into how the Czechs saw their land. With the aid of a Fulbright scholarship, he produced a book of photographs that lacks trickery and flash, but resonates with the simple poetry of place and people.

John Gossage is one of Ms. Donohue’s favorite bookmakers. She admires his “Putting Back the Wall: Berlin” (Loosestrife Editions) not only for its dark, brooding images, but for the writing in the book’s three essays, by Gerry Badger, Thomas Weski, and Mr. Gossage. “Putting Back the Wall” is a “beautiful physical object,” with wonderful design, good quality paper, and lots of middle tones and depth in the printing.

Two books that served as catalogs for museum shows were on Ms. Donohue’s list. “Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945” by Matthew S. Witkovsky (National Gallery of Art/Thames & Hudson), Ms. Donohue deemed “better than the exhibition.” It reproduced all the pictures in the exhibition (now at the Guggenheim) and read “like a potboiler.” “This is War! Robert Capa at Work” (ICP/Steidl) by Richard Whelan is the culmination of 20 years of research by the consulting curator of the Capa archives. A colleague of hers at ICP, Whelan “upped the level of scholarship” with his fastidious pursuit of both details and context.

But Ms. Donohue betrayed her true librarian’s heart by picking a reference book as her no. 1 favorite of 2007. “Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography” edited by John Hannavy (Routledge) has 1,200 essays (including one by her) on 1,736 pages in two volumes. It reflects the growing interest in the medium’s first half-century and in non-European practitioners. The table of contents is daunting in its comprehensiveness; there are seven essays on processes (negative), 10 on processes (photomechanical), and 19 on processes (positive). This is the sort of book you are never done with, a treasure trove for lovers of photography. And it weighs a ton.

wmeyers@nysun.com