Important to notice is the fact that by deaccessioning the quality
and relevance of the
collection is rising.
No library can grow without limit because of rising costs of storage.
Many libraries have been saved by the fact that many thousand's of
journals can
be removed by the fact that they got the e-version nowdays.
More and more books are digitalized. If Google has made millions of
books free,
why not let the paper version in many cases return to nature?
I think that many libraries have to remove one book for every new one bought
because they just haven't space enough.
The good thing is as I said. Less is more.
Jan
Weinheimer Jim skrev 2010-10-01 09:54:
> Tim Spalding wrote:
> <snip>
> 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.
> </snip>
>
> These sorts of decisions (annexing, deaccessioning) can be made in various ways, depending on what you are aiming for. Here is a similar story at Kent State: http://kentwired.com/half-the-books-are-checking-out-permanently/ They need to move 50 percent(!) of the books, so they are moving materials that have never been checked out. Incidentally, the example given there of a book Margaret Warner Morley's "A Song of Life," (2 copies) is in the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=A%20song%20of%20life%20morley where there are 4 copies.
>
> Also, the article says: "It's common for university libraries to reduce their collections, Salem said. A library the size of Kent routinely withdraws 75,000 to 100,000 items a year, Bracken said."
>
> Those numbers seem high to me, but if you are committed to moving out books: in this instance, 50% of everything, it's clearly impossible to do it on a case-by-case basis. In the Kent State example, "The university plans to reduce the 2.9 million volume collection at a rate of 5 percent per year over the next decade..." According to my very poor math, that comes to 145,000 volumes a year. Something on this scale can only be done ruthlessly in batches. Otherwise it can never be even attempted and is doomed to failure. Serials are normally the first to go because you "get the most bang for the buck".
>
> Also, when you ask the scholars, it's normally not very helpful. The main answer is: move the author guy's books wherever you want, but don't touch a single one of mine!!!! Scholars are normally not very amenable to change.
>
> It reminds me of a joke that John Fleming (one of the venerable scholars of Princeton University) once related at a meeting, "How many faculty members does it take to change a lightbulb?
>
> CHANGE?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> In reality, this is one of those tedious and thankless tasks that can only result in making everyone more or less angry and makes no one really happy. It is similar to determining a "core list" of serial titles, where some people's wishes and needs cannot and will not be met, so they make the blistering attacks on the library and librarians when the simple fact is that you cannot make everyone happy.
>
> At the same time in a huge project such as this, mistakes will occur, as you point out, and the library must be amenable to bringing back *some* books, but not all.
>
> As I said, this is the sort of task that can only make people more or less angry, and nobody happy. I feel for all those involved. The only option is to keep everything the way it has always been, and obviously, that is becoming less and less of an option today.
>
> James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
> Director of Library and Information Services
> The American University of Rome
> via Pietro Roselli, 4
> 00153 Rome, Italy
> voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
> fax-011 39 06 58330992
> First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
> Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
--
De åsikter som framförs här är mina personliga
och inte ett uttryck för Göteborgs universitets-
biblioteks hållning
Opinions expressed here are my own and not
those of the Gothenburg University Library
Jan Szczepanski
Förste bibliotekarie
Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek
Box 222
SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
Tel: +46 31 7861164 Fax: +46 31 163797
E-mail: Jan.Szczepanski_at_ub.gu.se
Received on Fri Oct 01 2010 - 04:32:07 EDT