QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING (4 messages) Ann Ercelawn 18 Nov 2005 21:16 UTC
4 messages: 1) From: "Mary Massey" <masse36e@erau.edu> Subject: RE: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:59:16 -0500 Discarding is an action to get rid of something useless or harmful. We might do this with materials that have mold or are torn up or defaced beyond repair. Weeding is a decisional process of examining collections and culling the least helpful pieces, such as items beyond their useful or valid stages of life. Materials that are not pertinent to the mission of the collection are also subject to weeding. Weeding is a continuous process in all libraries. Primary reasons are : space, physical changes/moves, focus of use by patrons, mission of the library, disastrous events (floods, tornados, fires, etc.), and changes to different formats (CD, Microforms, Digital, etc.) The strongest alternative I can think of is actually changing formats. This generally is done to create physical space and improve preservation of the information. For instance, we will be weeding a periodical section this summer and anticipate replacing loose issues with microforms, CD's, or online sources. The choice will depend on the monies available, but the titles will be maintained. Since we are a specialized academic library, many of our decisions will be driven by the actual use and abuse of materials we house. Tinker Massey Serials Librarian Hunt Library Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Mary.Massey@erau.edu 2)_____ Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:24:20 -0500 From: "Radmilla Dajkovich-Graham" <rdgraham@torontopubliclibrary.ca> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING Or you can donate your weeded items to a school, charity, community centre, etc. You can also create a little sale, whre you can sell your weeded books for a dollar or so. Good petty cash for your department, etc. Do not forget to mark your books as 'weeded'. Thank you >>> MorsCa@WWC.EDU 11/18/05 03:10PM >>> For books, if you can obtain newer editions of a title, it is easier to justify weeding the older one. I Or if it's out of date, like old medical and nursing books, that might hurt someone if they followed them. We send older books that we want to keep to another storage room. That's a good solution if you have another place near-by. Hope this helps, Carol Morse 3) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:02:09 -0500 Thread-Topic: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING From: "Stephanie Hess" <hesss@nsu.law.nova.edu> Carol makes an excellent point. The same liability issues exist for legal material. Unless you're performing legislative history research, there's no reason to retain outdated/ superseded materials. And if your library does retain outdated materials for that purpose, then it is necessary to mark the item(s) as such. Stephanie P. Hess Assistant Head of Technical Services for Acquisitions & Serials Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center Law Library & Technology Center 3305 College Ave. Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33314-7721 hesss@nsu.law.nova.edu (954) 262-6216 Phone (954) 262-3840 Fax 4) Subject: RE: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:30:45 -0600 From: "Mark Reineke" <reinekem@stf.sk.ca> A problem that many libraries have to deal with is space; they cannot afford to hang on to every item forever. This can lead to very difficult decisions for the library staff. On the other hand, if management were willing to build an extension to the library (so that there is a place to keep everything) and hire some extra staff (to look after the items in the new space) -- well that would make things a lot easier. Mark Reineke Stewart Resources Centre