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Website Review: Central Washington University


The Central Washington University deselection page provides a clearly identified strategy for deselecting books in the collection. The beginning section is called Collection Life Cycle here they list what happens to books from being chosen for the library, placed in the collection, and finally deselection or weeding of a title. This information is helpful to demonstrate that all books will go through this process eventually even if they are reshelved in the end.

The process that is described, although for an academic library, works for any library. The concise language and numbered points make this page a good go to site for reference. There is a ten-point General Deselection Criteria section followed by a six-point Deselection Guidelines. These sixteen points are clearly defined for what and how items are deselected.

Among the topics covered in the General Deselection Criteria section are relevance, usage, value, condition among others. Number eight deals with lost and paid material. This is a good addition as you need to decide if an item needs to be replaced before repurchasing the item. As an added touch there is a video link on the website that provides a tour of the university’s library.



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