Barb: This is great. I've been doing the same type of weeding, only I
don't have much time to do this, other than during
intersessions. How do you have the time to do review of content?
Sometimes I'll invite a faculty member to come to the shelves with me,
and we go through the report of circs together
to make decisions. They know their curriculum, so I find their input
valuable.
However, if something isn't circ-ing - what's the point of warehousing
it, unless it's classic, which many docs. are not. (not all, of course
there's always classic BBC series you just want to keep cause they're so
good).
We're a college, not a research university, so we keep our collection
relevant to our users.
The same procedure really comes true for print, i.e. monographs. Look
at circ history, look at content, condition.
Great work, and thanks for writing it out for us.
Susan
On 16/04/2012 3:49 PM, Bergman, Barbara J wrote:
I've been doing a lot of weeding this year of 16mm films and VHS tapes. Here's what I did.
Involved objective shuffling of spreadsheet data, and then some subjective decision making:
First ran reports that included copyright date, date added to collection,
circulation data -- total circs and circs within a shorter time frame (I did 3
years & 5 years back, as well as lifetime circs).
Reviewed for weeding:
1. No circs & at least 5 years in collection
2. Low circs (esp if none within last couple of years) & more than 10 years old
3. What kind of content?
Feature film or documentary/educational? (Didn't weed feature films unless appeared to have problems).
Is title of ongoing interest? Is content classic or likely to be out-of-date (ex: history vs science)?
Is it content of local interest? Out of print? If so, are other copies listed as available via WorldCat?
5. For collection development purposes, I also looked at the high circ VHS --
Were the circs recent? If so, looked to see if DVD/streaming was available for
reasonable cost.
After identified titles were pulled:
Did visual review of pulled tapes -- Was content what I had thought? Main problem identified at this point was what to do with video in a series -- keep all or withdraw partial?
Also did a visual review of what was left on shelves for tapes that looked old & beat-up. Checked circ stats -- if still being used, sent up for repackaging.
Most candidates for weeding were so clearcut that I didn't consult subject
collection developers regarding the withdrawal. I did let some know that we
should look for newer materials in a few subject areas. If in doubt, I
generally put it back on the shelf.
Barb Bergman | Media Services & Interlibrary Loan Librarian | Minnesota State
University, Mankato | (507) 389-5945 | barbara.berg...@mnsu.edu
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VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues
relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control,
preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and
related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective
working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication
between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and
distributors.
