> Similar categories, but not a complete overlap of characteristics. I'd like to see some recognition that the two sets (never checked out and never used) are - - at least potentially - - different populations.
Not potentially, actually.
When I was at Michigan someone at the library decided that since the
dozens of volumes of the Supplementum epigraphicum graecum (SEG)
hadn't been checked out in decades, they should be sent to
inconvenient offsite storage. In fact, the SEG is a key resource for
classics scholars and students, not to mention the papyrologists.
Presumably it hadn't been had checked out because the volumes weren't
much good singly, the whole set weighed 100 pounds, and nobody
realized or had the impudence to appropriate an obvious communal
resource.
After a blistering complaint from one of my professors, it was
returned from storage and put on building-use only, where it remains
today.
Why not ask the scholars? I bet you not a one will advocate for the
removal of large amounts of research material to make room for more
study spaces.
Tim
Received on Thu Sep 30 2010 - 21:28:33 EDT