General Collection Management Issues in the Dykes Library
Preservation and Conservation : Binding is a major means of preservation in that it reduces wear, simplifies handling, and reduces loss. Materials are identified for binding by members of the library staff. Preservation and conservation activities are under the direction of the Associate Director and the bindery technician. At the present time, preservation activities consist of binding, rebinding and tipping in pages. Commercial binding is sent out once every 2 weeks.
Weeding: 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 A collection is difficult to use when one must sift through large amounts of irrelevant, outdated materials. For details on weeding policies and procedures, see Appendix E.
Storage: The Dykes Library has sufficient room to grow into the forseeable future. We do have a small number of extremely low use materials kept in an off-site storage facility. However, we will not add materials to this facility in the forseeable future.
Replacement: The decision to replace a lost or missing item will be made by the Associate Director, Collection Management or the Collection Development Librarian. If the item is still available for purchase, the desirability or replacement will be the deciding factor. Older books which contain superseded information make poor candidates for replacement. In these cases, a newer book should be purchased instead. Because of their heavier use in biomedicine, more effort will go into replacing lost journals volumes.
Multiple copies: Because some books or journals are either very popular, or are used as required reading, a single copy may be difficult to locate in the Library. To meet this demand, the Library will selectively purchase multiple copies of high demand items. Multiple copy purchases will be restricted to only one or two additional copies. The decision to add additional copies will be made by the librarians within their respective selection areas.
Multiple subscriptions to journals will no longer be acquired. Most of the major periodical titles are now online, which obviates the need for multiple subscriptions.
Gifts and Donations: The Library welcomes gifts from its clientele, but reserves the right to use or discard materials as it sees fit. Decisions will be made by the subject specialists. The Library cannot assign a value to material donations. However, we will provide donors with a letter of acknowledgement.
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The University of Kansas Medical Center
