4 messages:

1)
From: "Mary Massey" <masse36e@erau.edu>
Subject: RE: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:59:16 -0500

Discarding is an action to get rid of something useless or harmful.
We might do this with materials that have mold or are torn up or
defaced
beyond repair.

Weeding is a decisional process of examining collections and
culling the
least helpful pieces, such as items beyond their useful or valid
stages of
life. Materials that are not pertinent to the mission of the
collection are
also subject to weeding.

Weeding is a continuous process in all libraries. Primary reasons
are : space, physical changes/moves, focus of use by patrons,
mission of the library, disastrous events (floods, tornados, fires,
etc.), and changes to different formats (CD, Microforms, Digital,
etc.)

The strongest alternative I can think of is actually changing
formats. This generally is done to create physical space and
improve preservation of the information. For instance, we will be
weeding a periodical section this
summer and anticipate replacing loose issues with microforms, CD's,
or online sources. The choice will depend on the monies available,
but the titles will be maintained. Since we are a specialized
academic library, many of our decisions will be driven by the
actual use and abuse of materials we house.

Tinker Massey
Serials Librarian
Hunt Library
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Mary.Massey@erau.edu

2)_____

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:24:20 -0500
From: "Radmilla Dajkovich-Graham" <rdgraham@torontopubliclibrary.ca>
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING

Or you can donate your weeded items to a school, charity, community
centre, etc.  You can also create a little sale, whre you can sell
your weeded books for a dollar or so.  Good petty cash for your
department,
etc.  Do not forget to mark your books as 'weeded'.  Thank you

>>> MorsCa@WWC.EDU 11/18/05 03:10PM >>>
For books, if you can obtain newer editions of a title, it is
easier to justify weeding the older one. I
Or if it's out of date, like old medical and nursing books, that
might hurt someone if they followed them. We send older books that
we want to keep to another storage room. That's a good solution if
you have another place near-by.
Hope this helps,
Carol Morse

3)

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:02:09 -0500
Thread-Topic: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING
From: "Stephanie Hess" <hesss@nsu.law.nova.edu>

Carol makes an excellent point.  The same liability issues exist
for legal material.  Unless you're performing legislative history
research, there's no reason to retain outdated/ superseded
materials.  And if your library does retain outdated materials for
that purpose, then it is necessary to mark the item(s) as such.

Stephanie P. Hess
Assistant Head of Technical Services for Acquisitions & Serials
Nova Southeastern University
Shepard Broad Law Center
Law Library & Technology Center
3305 College Ave.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33314-7721

hesss@nsu.law.nova.edu

(954) 262-6216 Phone
(954) 262-3840 Fax

4)

Subject: RE: [SERIALST] QUESTION ON WEEDING / DISCARDING
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:30:45 -0600
From: "Mark Reineke" <reinekem@stf.sk.ca>

A problem that many libraries have to deal with is space; they
cannot afford to hang on to every item forever.  This can lead to
very difficult decisions for the library staff.

On the other hand, if management were willing to build an extension
to the library (so that there is a place to keep everything) and
hire some extra staff (to look after the items in the new space) --
well that would make things a lot easier.

Mark Reineke
Stewart Resources Centre