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Staff & Administration • Library Documents

Task Group on Library Collections Space

Final Report

June 11, 1992

Appendix B

Solutions Considered by the Task Group

8. Weeding Steady State

Assumptions

  1. Average number of volumes received annually is approx. 25,000 volumes excluding unbound periodicals, government publications and rare books.

  2. Steady State requires that each volume received replaces an existing volume and each volume replaced is discarded.

Evaluation Criteria

  1. Gain in Shelf Space

    • There is no gain.

  2. Start-up Financial Costs

    • If we assume that the process of deselection is as important as the process of selection, then there will be staff costs to consider. Use statistics will be collected for the circulating collection and in-house statistics will be collected for other purposes. Staff will be engaged in identifying items to be withdrawn, removing them from the shelves, listing them for Withdrawal Bulletins, deleting the appropriate records, labelling them as withdrawn items and packaging and shipping them. Costs include staff, printing, packaging and shipping costs and database charges (UTLAS and OCLC).

  3. Continuing Costs

    • These costs will be approximately the same as the start-up costs if we assume that our annual intake will be approximately the same each year.

  4. Effects on Staff Morale

    • Staff morale will deteriorate unless additional staff are hired to complete the task.

  5. Effects on the Accessibility of the Collection

    • Withdrawn items will be discarded. The remaining collection will be no less accessible.

  6. Potential Resistance

    • There will be considerable resistance by faculty members and graduate students as we will get to the position where valuable materials will be withdrawn from the collection solely on the basis that they are the least used. Government Publications material must be included in the process and this may jeopardize deposit agreements.

  7. Long vs Short Term Solution

    • Long term.

The following document is a statement of the University's policy and procedures for weeding.

University of Waterloo Library

Policy and Procedures for the relocation or withdrawal of library materials

  1. Guidelines

    Removing materials from open shelves in the Library requires consultation between librarians and faculty, to determine which materials could be relocated to Storage, and which might be discarded This decision-making process should neither jeopardize support for teaching and research, nor should it inconvenience the Library's primary user groups. The following categories of library materials will be considered for storage or discard:

    1. Duplicate volumes
    2. Superseded or revised editions
    3. Material which no longer supports teaching and research at the University
    4. Low-use material
    5. Material more appropriately held in another repository
    6. Paper copies duplicated in microformat
    7. Material collected by a proximate library
    8. Material in poor physical condition

  2. Procedures

    Procedures for Relocating Library Materials to Storage

    Storage is a designated library location, listed on WATCAT. Library materials are sent to storage at the discretion of the collections librarian, in consultation with the departmental representative when necessary. Material can be retrieved from storage within 24 hours, during the work week. Books that are recalled three times in one year are automatically considered for return to the stacks. Requests that other items be returned to the stacks will be reviewed by the appropriate collections librarian as they occur.

    1. The collection librarian and departmental representative will determine the criteria to be used for selection of material for storage
    2. The collections librarians will identify material for storage
    3. Librarians and faculty will review the selections when necessary
    4. Material will be transferred to storage

Procedures for Withdrawing Library Material from the Collection

In some cases it is more appropriate to withdraw material than to store it. Identification of material to withdraw is a difficult matter, and consultation between faculty and librarians is essential.

  1. The collections librarian and departmental representative will determine the criteria to be used in the selection of material for withdrawal
  2. A preliminary list of material proposed for withdrawal will be prepared
  3. The preliminary list will be reviewed by appropriate librarians and faculty
  4. Faculty and Librarians will mark those items they consider not suitable for withdrawal. These marked items will be put in storage unless the marker has indicated they should go back on the open shelves.
  5. Unique items remaining on the withdrawal list will be placed on a Withdrawal Bulletin, to be sent to all collections librarians, library representatives, and departmental chairmen for final review.
  6. Books remaining on the Withdrawal Bulletin will be made available to other academic institutions.

89.03.28 (Revised)

David Emery
Associate Librarian, Collections

WWW version: June 5, 1995

Secretary to the University Librarian
Last Updated: May 26, 2005