At the University of North Dakota, we are just completing the first
deaccessioning ever done, since the University was established in the
1880s. We have indeed removed bound volumes of JSTOR titles. We are
a public institution, and there are state laws regarding disposal of
state property, but they do allow for faculty to claim anything they'd
like to retain in their offices - but they are not allowed then to
remove them from UND property. So far, virtually no one has been
interested in journal volumes - they realize how many volumes they'd
be. We have had several thousand claims for books though, and have
completed paperwork to withdraw them from the library collection and
still have them considered state property by being transferred to the
office of a faculty member. But at least then they are no longer our
responsibility. We have also transferred some items to other state
agencies - the State Historical Society took our microfilm of the
Bismarck Tribune newspaper. That's also allowed.
I've done this at many other institutions - state and private - and
know well to make sure we don't have dumpsters full of bound volumes
openly displayed. We made arrangements with our Facilities staff to
pick up discards on a bimonthly basis. Until they're ready, we keep
them indoors; once the heavy equipment shows up, they come to the
loading dock and we dump the volumes in by the tub-ful, and they're
gone within 15 minutes.
We have had some push-back from faculty who are horrified at the very
idea that any library would discard anything, and I've had faculty who
said that "Real research libraries don't do this" - to which I
countered "That was part of my job at several past institutions,
including Harvard and the University of Toronto. I'm sorry, but
academic libraries do indeed deaccession materials. We all do, or
we'd quickly be out of space entirely." We have a very detailed
policy that we developed, and its entirely in accordance with state law.
Stephanie Walker
Dean of Libraries & Information Resources
Quoting Laura Turner <lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu>:
> I should have clarified below - the departments/individual faculty members
> want to keep the de-accessioned journals in their departments/offices.
>
> Thanks!
>
> *Laura Turner*
> *Head of Collections, Access, and Discovery*
> Helen K. and James S. Copley Library / University of San Diego
> 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110-2492
> Phone: (619) 260-2365 | lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 8:43 AM Laura Turner <lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> ***Please excuse cross-posting***
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> We recently acquired all of the JSTOR journal packages and are in the
>> process of de-accessioning print overlap for titles that did not have
>> perpetual access before this acquisition. We've been doing JSTOR print
>> overlap withdrawals for years and typically send this material for
>> recycling. With this new influx of overlap, we have faculty and even whole
>> academic departments on campus requesting the print journals that would be
>> recycled. Alas, we did not have a very strong statement of our
>> policy/procedures for de-accessioned journal materials.
>>
>> Have you run into situations like this? How did your library respond?
>> What kinds of benefits or challenges did you find with your response?
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> *Laura Turner*
>> *Head of Collections, Access, and Discovery*
>> Helen K. and James S. Copley Library / University of San Diego
>> 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110-2492
>> Phone: (619) 260-2365 | lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu
>>
>
Received on Tue Nov 13 2018 - 18:18:08 EST