Thanks to everyone who responded to my question. I appreciate your help. Below is a summary of the responses I received.
Regards,
Samantha
****************************** *****
Samantha Thompson-Franklin, MA, MLIS
Associate Professor/Collections & Acquisitions Librarian
Lewis-Clark State College Library
500 - 8th Ave.
Lewiston, ID 83501
phone: 208-792-2557
fax: 208-792-2831
sfranklin_at_lcsc.edu
****************************** ****
ACQNET-L responses received to question posted re: keeping record of library discards
Nov. 2013
Original message posting:
Hello,
My director has asked me to find out how other academic libraries handle their discards in terms of record keeping. Are you required by any of your governing bodies (college/university or state) to keep a record of the titles of items you withdraw from your collection? Do any libraries do this as a normal part of their weeding procedures? Many thanks for your help.
Samantha
***********************************
Samantha Thompson-Franklin, MA, MLIS
Associate Professor/Collections & Acquisitions Librarian
Lewis-Clark State College Library
500 - 8th Ave.
Lewiston, ID 83501
phone: 208-792-2557
fax: 208-792-2831
sfranklin_at_lcsc.edu
**********************************
Hello~
We do a count of the number of books that are being discarded (no titles). We do separate out a few locations that we need to keep closer tabs on but none that require us to report specific titles of the books that have been discarded. I once worked at a library that kept discard by call number but never really used anything more than the total number of discards for the year. The people that we need to report to (university administration for insurance purposes, etc.) have never been interested in much more than a single number. Numbers of discards of AV materials are usually kept just to give me an idea how well we are doing at replacing high use VHS tapes and underused VHS tapes and the same for audiocassettes and audio CDs.
Kristina
Kristina Edwards
Assistant Librarian, Collection Development and Acquisitions
Clement C. Maxwell Library
Bridgewater State University
10 Shaw Rd.
Bridgewater, MA 02325-0001
Kristina.edwards_at_bridgew.edu
508-531-203
Hi Samantha,
We use a user-defined field in the item record to indicate the academic year of withdrawal and a note field to indicate the reason for withdrawal if applicable (weeding project, damage, etc.) I export a rather detailed list of withdrawn items after the end of each fiscal year, including OCLC number, location, item number, title, call number. This gives us the reporting info I need. Although our cataloger is responsible for all withdrawals, she gets this list as a check to be sure our OCLC holdings are updated. As a public institution, we work with our procurement office on all discards.
I’m interested to hear how other libraries address this –
Thanks,
Cathy
Cathy Goodwin
Head of Collection Management
Kimbel Library
Coastal Carolina University
P.O. Box 261954
Conway, SC 29528-6054
843-349-2408
www.coastal.edu
We do not keep anything other than the number of items removed and their category (book, VHS, DVD, etc.). We are asked to provide numbers every year in our annual report, but never anything more detailed than that. Hope this helps.
Deborah
//SIGNED//
Deborah Barone
Chief, Acquisitions/Serials
Fairchild Research Information Center
Air University
600 Chennault Circle, Room 160
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6010
Phone: 334-953-2410 / DSN: 493-2410
Fax: 334-953-5130
We use Innovative and have a consistent format for the internal note in item records when books are withdrawn. For example, “withdrawn mm/dd/yyyy.” A reason is given, too: damaged, as per a librarian, etc. Using create lists, I can pull a report of books withdrawn in a calendar year by searching “withdrawn” and “2013” in the internal note. I then export the fields needed (author, title, location, internal note, call number etc.) to Excel and the list can be sort by various fields. We do this largely for our own information—to gauge collection growth, etc. For example, by sorting on location, I can check how we did on a specific stack level, or I can sort by call number range, etc.
I hope this helps.
Steve
Steven McGuirl
Acquisitions Librarian
New York Society Library
53 East 79th Street
New York, NY 10075
212-288-6900, ext. 247
Hi Samantha—
We only keep track of discards insofar as we keep the bib records with status “withdrawn.” They aren’t visible in the public catalog, but it’s nice to have them in the staff view so we don’t buy again, etc etc.
We use the Millennium (Innovative) ILS. So far (knock wood) no one has asked for a list of withdrawn titles, but would be fairly easy to compile.
Best,
Kirstin Steele
Collection Management Librarian
Daniel Library
The Citadel
171 Moultrie St
Charleston SC 29409
843-953-5837
843-953-5190 (fax)
Kirstin.steele_at_citadel.edu
Hello Samantha,
We retain the item records for each discard, but suppress it from public view.
We code these records as discards in one of the item record fields.
This way we can, if needed, generate a list of titles, volumes and copy numbers of each item we discard.
Of course, this means that each discard must have a catalog record in the online library catalog and that the system used provides the functionality to suppress individual item records. Our catalog is with Innovative Interfaces.
We can also add notes to the record to detail dates, reasons, etc. for the discard.
Best regards,
Don
Donald Wheeler
Collection Development Librarian
The LuEsther T. Mertz Library
The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, NY 10458
email: dwheeler_at_nybg.org
phone: 718-817-8752
Aloha Samantha,
We are a private institution. We are not required keep a record of our discards by our university administration, but we have been keeping statistics since the dawn of time and we have been running title reports since 2003 as well as statistical reports. We are using the SirsiDynix Symphony system and we check out all discards to “Mr Discard” and then we run title reports. This also facilitates batch removal from the ILS. I retain brief bibliographic information, including call number, when I run the reports. I haven’t ever compiled them at the end of the year to do an analysis, such as by call number or publication date, but that would be useful. Ah, a project to keep some poor study busy when they have finished their regular tasks….
Hope this is of some help and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Marynelle
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Marynelle Chew
Brigham Young University-Hawaii
808-675-3863
marynelle.chew_at_byuh.edu
We do something similar - suppress records and add notes re: withdrawal. However, we are not a library that routinely weeds, so our volume is probably comparatively low. Not sure if others would find this more onerous.
-Meg
___________
Meg Manahan
Director, Technical Services
Fenwick Library
George Mason University
4400 University Drive MS 2FL
Fairfax, Virginia 22030-4444
Email: mmanahan_at_gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-2445
Fax: 703-993-2263
Samantha, you should take a look at questionnaires from bodies that request library statistics with your director. We turn in statistics to a regional association (ASERL) which adheres to the same questionnaire as ARL, also ACRL, and also Academic Library Survey (ALS, which may get rolled back up into IPEDS) and we use withdrawal/weeding numbers in some of them or else use those numbers to derive the net change in holdings, which some ask for. The one with the most granular level of tracking now seems to be ALS/IPEDS, which is national. IPEDS is required. You can Google any of these and do the reading -- that's how I keep up with what must be tracked.
Lauren
--
Lauren Corbett
Director of Resource Services, Z. Smith Reynolds Library
Wake Forest University
336-758-6136
We use Innovative also and create a discard bib record for each fiscal year. As titles are withdrawn we add an alt title to the bib record which includes the title, date discarded, and vendor. We also put the title in the identity field of the order record(s) and transfer the order record to the discard bib record.
Pete Boll
Acquisitions Librarian
Wisconsin State Law Library
120 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd
Madison, WI 53703
Peter.Boll_at_wicourts.gov
ph: 608-261-2341
fx: 608-267-2319
We also only keep the number of titles and items removed from our library. I used to report the number of discarded items by format to our university comptroller but he has not asked for the count in recent years. However, I still keep counting and prepare a memo every year in case someone asks for it one day.
Clement Chu-Sing Lau
Associate Director for
Technical Services and Administration
University of Baltimore
School of Law Library
Room AL1135, 1401 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
U.S.A.
T el: 410-837-4592
Fax: 410-837-4656
Email: cclau_at_ubalt.edu
http://law.ubalt.edu/template.cfm?page=1526
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Received on Wed Nov 20 2013 - 20:26:53 EST