On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 9:27 PM, Tim Spalding <tim_at_librarything.com> wrote:
>> 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.
But, frankly, this seems like an anecdotal anomaly. Given that we're
talking about ~600,000 items (!!!) that have *never* circulated in the
modern era (at least, if
http://discovery.library.colostate.edu/Search/Home?lookfor=*:*&type=all&filter[]=format:%22Books%22
is somewhat accurate) there would certainly have to be hidden gems in
there (I mean... SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND). I would imagine the subject
liason would at least have a guess as to what would need to be held on
to, but majority of it (say, 9,999 of every 10,000) most likely should
either be weeded or shipped offsite.
And let's say you ship it offsite and it turns out people wind up
using the resource, in the library, a lot. So what? Once it's
discovered that this thing that is actually pretty valuable shouldn't
have been put in storage, it can always be moved back.
Our electronic resources go down all the time (that is, scholars don't
have access to the materials, *gasp!*) and yet somehow satellites
don't fall from the sky, our rivers still flow towards oceans, the sun
still sets in the west.
What's sort of amazing is -- didn't CSU's library get totalled some
years back due to a massive flood? I would have thought that that
would have taken care of a large swath of their problem.
-Ross.
>
> 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 - 22:54:52 EDT