Annotated Bibliography: An Ugly Weed: Innovative Deselection to Address a Shelf Space Crisis

Arbeeny, P., & Chittenden, L. (2018). An Ugly Weed: Innovative Deselection to Address a Shelf Space Crisis. Journal Of Library Innovation, 5(1). Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-clarion.klnpa.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=f9804ddd-f21b-47d7-a2c4-431993097c2a%40sdc-v-sessmgr04

In 2012 Fort Lewis College in Durango Colorado was faced with an interesting problem- one month to weed out 3,000 to 4,000 items from their collection, to make room for more study spaces in their library, as well as freeing much-needed shelf space. This problem was made harder due to the departure of two staff members right before this project was to begin. The library was now down to four total staff members, making the already daunting prospect even harder.

The staff created a fast weeding process, with the whole collection in a spreadsheet, making use of keyword filtering, as well as filtering out books that had not been checked out since 2003, the only exception being those that were core titles or authors to the programs at the college. Using the computer they were able to filter the collection to quickly find books that they had multiple copies of, books that were out of date, and books they had in languages that were not useful to the college (for example, any books in German were weeded, as the college no longer had a German Language program.) They were also able to narrow down most of their collection to primary sources. Though this they were able to weed out 3,900 books out of their collection within the month.

This was an interesting experiment in weeding, especially the use of a spreadsheet to weed. Though it was not a perfect system, given the time restraints it was particularly effective.

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Annotated Bibliography- Data Driven Deselection: Using a Decision Support Tool

Ehret Snyder, C. (2013, Dec 20). Data-driven deselection: multiple point data using a decision support tool in an academic library. Collection Management, 39 , 11-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2013.866607 Weeding is a time-consuming and sensitive task for librarians. It is necessary to make space for new material, keep information current and updated, and remove items in poor condition. Librarians have to determine what kind of data is necessary to review in order to justify removing an item from the library’s shelves. Tools exist to help librarians gather multiple points of data to make the process more efficient. The librarians at Olin Library, part of Rollins College in Florida, utilized such a tool (Sustainable Collections Services) to help them update their collection and present the findings in this paper. Summary: Librarians are short on time and weeding is one of the most time-consuming tasks they can take on. Criteria is necessary to make...

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