Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 09:41:17 -0800
From: Irma Nicola <INicola@APU.EDU>
Subject: backfiles

We have about 1700 titles more or less evenly divided between 2 buildings
and 3 collections, since we always have space issues, a large part of the
issue being backfiles, can I get an idea of how long small university
libraries keep backfiles of certain topics, particularly nursing, psychology
,education and computer science?  I really want to hear from other similar
sized institutions as to what is typical.

At APU we have a student population of 6,000.

My sense is that we should never have more than 10 years of any topic on
paper.

How do other places handle this kind of weeding?