All of the books that are candidates for removal from the collection are marked with bright green paper strips, imprinted with the call number and title of the book. If there is a book that you do not want removed from the collection, simply write on the strip "Do Not Remove" or "DNR." You do not need to state a reason to keep the book, and there will be no questions asked if a book is challenged. (It is also completely anonymous.) If you want to check out a book that has a green strip, please don't let the green strip prevent you.

I want to remind everyone of the procedure for weeding. I started with a list of titles that have not been checked out in at least fifteen years. Then I took the list to the stacks, and went through each book one by one and evaluated each for relevancy, currency, and appropriateness for our curriculum. In sum, of the original list of books that had not been checked out, only half have been marked for removal.

I know some of you have not participated in this project before, so if you have any questions, please let me know. The end of the review period will be mid-summer, and I will send out plenty of reminders. Also, you can look through the rest of this blog for more background.

This is part of a larger evaluation of the collection, which will continue in Winter Term with call numbers BL through HV. Look for updates here.

I encourage everyone with an interest in the Psychology books to review the candidates for withdrawal. Please keep in mind that the marked books have not been checked out in fifteen years and were acquired before the year 2000. If you feel that a book should not be withdrawn, please write "Do Not Withdraw" on the paper strip and bring it to the circulation desk. Any challenges to books marked for withdrawal will automatically stay in the collection, no questions asked.

The BF call number range is quite large. I suggest that you begin your review with the subjects that are most important to you, then work your way through the rest of the range if you can. To see a list of subjects and their call number ranges within Psychology, click here. If you are interested in a subject that is not listed, please contact me and I will work with you to direct you to the appropriate area. Remember that all of the science faculty are invited to review books.

The Psychology books will be reviewed until late Fall Term, and I will announce a definite date when the review will end as I see how the review progresses in the next few weeks.

Next up, Earth Sciences!

Also see http://library.wlu.edu/science/weedingupdate.asp

In addition to weeding the journal collection, the general (circulating) collection must be weeded as well. Currently, the plan is to work by call number, beginning with BF (Psychology)*.

We will be looking at the following characteristics:

For each "chunk" of call numbers, we will look at the circulation history and mark for review all titles that have not ever been checked out since the online circulation system was installed in 1991.

We are excluding titles that were acquired after the year 2000, as these are newer titles that have not had time to circulate. (In other words, books that were purchased after 2000 will not be touched.)

We are excluding titles that are "standards" in the field, even though they may have never circulated.

Titles that are selected for weeding will be marked with red removable adhesive dots, and all reviewers will have a chance to challenge any marked item. Books will be kept on the shelf rather than moved to a "review area" because it is best for reviewers to evaluate these books in the context of other items in the collection. Slips of paper will be available for reviewers to leave notes about specific titles (such as challenging a marked item, or identifying that they would like to acquire this item for their personal library) and we encourage reviewers to use them.

We plan on marking books for review at the beginning of summer and making an announcement to all science faculty that a range of call numbers is ready for review. Any faculty member from any department is welcome to review any set of call numbers. Reviewers are also welcome to make "anonymous" challenges. If a book is challenged, it will not be discarded.

Updates on the weeding project will be made on the Weeding Update page, and also via email and at this blog. If you have questions or concerns about any aspect of this project, please contact Mary Abdoney at abdoneym@wlu.edu or x8647.

*We hope to have all of the Psychology (BF) books marked by mid-summer and available for review for the second half of summer and Fall Term.

Computer Science

Currently, Kyle Felker is evaluating the Computer Science titles, with call numbers between QA 75.5 and QA 76.95. We expect to have these titles marked by the end of Spring Term, and ready for review by the start of summer. The rest of the disciplines will be handled by Mary Abdoney and Cindy Morton.

We plan on ending the review period at the end of Spring Term, and will begin the physical removal during the summer. Some faculty have expressed interest in keeping certain titles either for their home libraries, campus offices, or departmental offices. Shelf measurements must be considered here, as we do not want anyone to have more volumes than they can handle.

Discarded volumes will be donated to needy libraries, such as those destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, or libraries in impoverished areas. Those that cannot be donated will be recycled by a professional recycling company.

Original email:

Dear Science faculty,

Many of you have heard of, or perhaps observed for yourself, the space issue in the Science Library. A healthy library is one that has plenty of room for growth, and we are quickly running out of room. This problem is especially serious in the bound periodicals section on Upper Level 4. The lack of shelf space on this floor will soon make it impossible to acquire new periodical titles as well as continue to receive our current subscriptions.

However, there is a solution that will save shelf space while continuing our current subscriptions. JSTOR, an online journal archive, has the made the back issues of many journals available in a high quality electronic format. Most of these journals have the electronic archive available from the start of publication.

To save shelf space, a logical solution is to discard these print volumes in favor of the electronic archive that JSTOR provides. We will still keep the print version of these titles for five years, since they are not archived in JSTOR until five years after publication. (Read more about JSTOR's "moving wall" at http://www.jstor.org/about/movingwall.html.) This means that you will still be able to come to the library and read the latest print issue of your favorite journals as always, and direct students to these journals as well. The Annie catalog and the Periodical Finder both reflect our electronic access to these journals, so access to the archives are just a few clicks away. As many of you know, JSTOR has an excellent interface for locating volumes and/or issues of journals and locating particular articles within that volume/issue.

A list of the Science Library's JSTOR journals is available at http://odtaa.wlu.edu/periodicals/JSTORListAll.asp thanks to the hard work of Cindy Morton and Wendy Richards. This list includes the titles' links in the Annie catalog, coverage in JSTOR, coverage in other electronic formats, and coverage in print. If we are able to discard these volumes, we could save well over 200 feet in shelf space. That gives us room for growth of our other periodical titles that are not available in JSTOR and for new subscriptions.

Please take a look at this list. I will open a discussion on the Science Library Updates blog so that you may comment and ask questions about this project. I would like to address everyone's concerns before embarking on this project, but I believe it will be a solution that everyone will feel confident in.

Sincerely,
Mary Abdoney

For comments left at Science Library Updates, click here.