Collection management is usually perceived as an activity that only adds new materials to a library. Collection management is also undertaken to maximize the usefulness of a library's collections to the clientele. For the purpose of this policy statement, weeding is defined as the removal of items from the Library’s active collection. Weeding is an important part of the management of collections. Deselection, or weeding, is the careful elimination from the collection of unwanted or unnecessary materials that accumulate over time. This is done not only to conserve valuable space, but more importantly to increase the value or usefulness or the collection (and, concomitantly, to increase circulation of existing resources). A collection is difficult to use when one must sift through large amounts of irrelevant, outdated materials.
The subject bibliographers, with the Collection Development Librarian and Associate Director, have primary responsibility for weeding activities. Other faculty and staff may be called upon to serve as consultants when necessary. The Collection Development Librarian has the final say on titles to be deselected.
Objectives of Deselection:
- To make the most effective use of shelf space.
Shelving of library materials is inherently expensive. Sufficient stack space is always at a premium. Deselection may be necessary to remove materials that are not needed and provide space for new acquisitions
- To utilize acquisitions funds in the most effective manner.
Cancellation of unnecessary subscriptions or standing orders frees acquisitions funds to acquire other titles that are more responsive to current teaching and research needs.
- To increase the relevance of the existing collections to current curricular needs.
Removing dated or irrelevant titles from the shelves facilitates browsing by students and faculty.
- To maintain the collections in an acceptable physical condition.
Items that will be considered for weeding are superseded editions, materials showing low use, physically deteriorated volumes, subject areas no longer collected, and outdated materials of no historical importance. Subject areas that are collected at shallow depths will be weeded more rigorously than in-depth areas.
The following areas are to be considered in evaluating each item for weeding:
- Frequency of use – Is it used by faculty, staff, students or lent out via ILL?
- Subject area still relevant to the needs and interests of users
- Author – Has the item been written by a faculty/staff at the Medical Center?
- Special features
- Status in history of the subject
- Publication date
- Continuity or length of run of journal titles
- Brandon/Hill status
- Format – Is the material reliably available electronically?
- Physical state of the item – Can it be repaired or should it be replaced?
- Language
- Duplication – multiple or redundant materials
Special Material Types
- CME materials will be discarded once their date for continuing education credit has passed
- Exam review: Previous editions of exam review materials will not be retained; older editions will be discarded as new ones arrive
- NCME videos will be discarded once their date for credit has passed, which is 3 years from the date printed on the video jacket
- Supplementary materials: disks, CDs or other materials that come with another resource (i.e. a monograph) should be discarded when the accompanying resource is weeded
- Websites: links to web-based materials should be removed from the catalog/website if the link becomes inactive and a current one cannot be found and/or if the material becomes outdated
Librarians may use the acronym, MUSTIE, to indicate when an item should be removed from the collection. MUSTIE stands for:
Misleading and/or factually inaccurate:
Ugly (worn out beyond mending or rebinding):
Superseded by a new edition or a better source;
Trivial (of no discernable literary or scientific merit);
Irrelevant to the needs and interests of your community;
Elsewhere (the material may be easily borrowed from another source).
Older items to be retained are those of local historical interest and those generally recognized as important contributions to the health sciences. The prime identifier of these latter items will be A Medical Bibliography by Garrison and Morton (1991 edition held by Farha and Clendening). Other criteria to consider in retaining older materials include those written by KUMed authors, items pertaining to health in Kansas or the Kansas City metropolitan area, older editions of Brandon/Hill materials and materials potentially of use in legal research. In all respects, we cooperate with the Clendening History of Medicine when weeding materials from our collection.
Weeding Procedures For Non-Serials:
Print out two lists in your subject area(s): all items that have and have not circulated in the last three years. Each list should include author, title, barcode number, publication date, last circulation date and number of copies for each item. A starting point for deselection of monographs and A/V items is materials over 5 years old that have not circulated/been used in the last 3 years. This is a guideline only, and is not intended as a hard rule for deselection. Some materials (i.e. anatomy of the rat) will be accurate and potentially useful for many years, while others (i.e. advances in cancer treatment) will have a shorter useful lifespan. It is up to each subject bibliographer to decide which materials to weed, and librarians are encouraged to consult with faculty who have an interest in their subject area(s).
Once the subject bibliographer has identified titles to be deselected, he or she should place a “weeding slip” in the item and replace it on the shelf so the weeding slip is clearly visible. Alternatively, if a small number of titles are being weeded, they may be removed and placed on a book truck. Faculty, staff and/or library committee members, as well as Clendening’s Rare Book Librarian should then be invited to review materials identified to be deselected. If faculty/staff feel an item marked for deselection should be kept, they may make a notation on the weeding slip, and give the item to staff at the Public Services Desk, who will give it to the appropriate subject bibliographer.
Once the review period is over, materials to be weeded should be turned over to the Cataloging Assistant for processing and removal from the collection.
Weeding as Part of the Collection Development Process:
When reviewing items for deselection, subject bibliographers should take the opportunity to conduct a “post mortem” on low use items, to determine why they have not been used and evaluate collection needs.
Why did the item fail? Was it due to the:
- Author?
- Publisher?
- Format?
- Quality?
- Subject?
- Level?
Last updated June 8, 2005
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The University of Kansas Medical Center