2. Maintaining the collection
Library materials are expensive to purchase, process, and house. The Library acknowledges the necessity of preserving all holdings, both traditional and nontraditional, and supports the American Library Association’s “Preservation Policy.” The following general principles apply:
2.1 Preservation/conservation
Periodicals are evaluated for addition to the permanent collection and whether to be commercially bound. Periodicals that have perpetual digital versions available, have incomplete volumes, or are replaced with microform are not considered for binding, with an exception for archival periodicals. Hardbound books and paperbacks are rebound as needed or evaluated for replacement if more cost effective. The Library’s liaison librarians, with input from the Cataloging Librarian and/or Acquisitions Librarian, evaluates the physical conditions of items in their area. They recommend repairing, rebinding, deaccession, or replacement. The Technical Services staff coordinates repair and binding operations.
2.2 Replacements
Replacement of damaged or outdated material is not automatic. Replacing the item may be determined by the Acquisitions Librarian with recommendations and assistance from the Library’s liaison librarians, Technical Services staff, and consultation with university departmental faculty when determined to be necessary. When the material comes from media, reference, government documents, or special collections departments, those responsible for the area will be consulted.
Except for material in archival and manuscript collections, repair alternatives such as re-binding or a method of incorporating loose or replacement pages (tipping-in) should be considered before replacing damaged material. For missing items, replacement should be initiated only after thorough searching and sufficient time—usually one year—has lapsed to avoid unnecessary duplication. Heavily used items may be replaced immediately and treated as an additional copy.
Replacement factors considered are:
2.3 Weeding / Deaccession
The Library conducts a continuous review of its print and digital collections, seeking to provide high-quality scholarly resources for its patrons. Removing duplicate, outdated, or irreparably damaged library materials by weeding/de-selection/deaccession is essential for maintaining an active, academically useful collection, and for best using limited space. Weeding is labor intensive. It is a fairly costly operation; therefore, the selection of titles for weeding must be done responsibly.
Individual faculty members are encouraged to identify the Library items that could be weeded from classification ranges relevant to their field. The Library’s departmental faculty liaisons work with the Library’s liaison librarians in their assigned academic departments to select specific areas in the collection for attention.
The same criteria for selection will apply to weeding (see section 1 Criteria for selecting library materials). In addition, the following criteria for weeding will also be considered when reviewing items for deselection:
Materials required for program accreditation can be granted an exemption from these guidelines and criteria with supporting documentation from accreditors.
2.3.1 Procedure for Deaccession (Weeding)
2.3.2 Discipline-Specific Guidelines
Standards for library collections vary by discipline, with some fields requiring only the most up-to-date materials as the fields are constantly developing. Examples of disciplines with materials that should be deaccessioned after a certain period of time include, but are not limited to:
2.3.3 Materials Never Weeded Guidelines
The library will never deaccession (weed) these types of items from the library collections except for format changes such as moving from a print edition to a digital edition:
2.4 Collection record updates
Weeding requires changing official records, since the library services platform’s online catalog and OCLC bibliographic utility reflect the collection. Part of the deaccession process involves removing or suppressing the record of a title chosen for deaccession in the catalog, and the Library’s holding symbol is deleted from the record in the OCLC database. Missing items will be so identified in the catalog (see also section 2.2 Replacements).
2.5 Disposition
Disposition of material selected for deaccession and any in-kind gifts not selected for inclusion in the collection is made subject to University Policy FI0610. Vice Chancellor Petra McPhearson on 2/21/24 gave an emailed blanket approval allowing the library to offer deaccessioned items free of charge to students, faculty, and staff before sending them to surplus. For disposition, the items will either be made available during a free two-week disbursement in-library offering and/or sent to surplus for recycling. Any items not disbursed will move into the recycling workflow after the offering period ends.
The disposition of government documents in the Library’s depository collection is governed by 44 USC § 1912. Designated regional depositories may permit depository libraries, within the areas served by them, to dispose of Government publications that they have retained for five years after first offering the physical items to other depository libraries within their area, then to other libraries, and then into a recycling stream. Government document collection records will be updated as appropriate during the disposition process (see section 2.4 Collection record updates).