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We are in the midst of a large weeding project in our reference collection here at the Wright State University Libraries.  We have about 19,000 volumes and need to decrease this by 1/3 in order to accommodate some new computers in our information commons.  I’m sure this is a common practice in libraries today.  As we are weeding, I’m finding it very interesting the types of materials that are going away, and things that are staying.  Online sources have really changed the way we think about the collection.

First and foremost, anything we owned electronically was removed.  Our P are was slashed, due to a recent procurement of the Gale literary guides online.  Older material tended to stay where newer directories, dictionaries, and factual content was removed.  It seemed most of our decisions were based on the premise, what could we find online?  As if the decisions weren’t difficult enough, in the midst of the weeding we received word that the OhioLINK budget was going to be hit hard with cuts and we would lose many online databases.  Suddenly large sets of biographical sources that were set to move out were pulled back, just in case we needed to cut our local subscriptions to them.

The biggest shock to me (and a pleasant one) was the weeding of the US and Ohio laws and codes.  With access to Lexis and other government sources for keyword searching and now browsing of these vital resources, the print just wasn’t getting used.  My what 15 years will do to a traditional library source.

Are you weeding in your institution?  If so, what types of materials are going to circulation or withdraw?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Print Resources, Reference Sources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.