I'm in a medical library and we often enlist the help of the department heads to see what can be discarded.  Make a point of telling them that you HAVE to cut the collection and ask that they prioritize their selections.  Otherwise they tend to want to keep everything in their subject area and cut everything else.

Aloha

Pamela Scott
Library Technician
Tripler Army Medical Library

----- Original Message -----
From: Sarah Sanford <ssanford@GUSTAVUS.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:50 am
Subject: [SERIALST] Weeding print periodicals
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU

> I need professional weeding/shifting advice!
>
> We are a small academic library with approximately 1000 active
> print
> journals. Last summer we finished shifting the entire
> periodicals
> collection, leaving 5 years of growth for all active titles. In
> many
> cases, we had to use the bottom shelf because of space concerns--
> which
> means in less than 5 years we will be at full capacity.
>
> I am not a librarian but I am the manager of the periodicals
> department.
> All weeding has to be approved by the librarians. What
> suggestions do
> you have to 1) create space in the collection and
> 2) help facilitate a weeding project?
>
> One idea is to document all the titles which have short runs (1-
> 10
> years) and are older than 1990 and see if I can weed these. What
> we
> can't get through ILL we would likely keep. We keep usage stats
> but only
> on active titles. We already have a number of titles on a
> retention
> cycle (JSTOR, etc.) and we substitute online for print where it
> is cost
> effective. I don't work directly with departments and have no
> idea which
> titles we need to keep for 50 years and which we only need to
> keep for
> 5. Weeding the periodicals collection will not be a priority for
> the
> librarians, but it's one we have to do to create space.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> --
>
> Sarah Monson
> Serials Manager
> Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library
> Gustavus Adolphus College
> St. Peter, MN 56082
> Phone: 507-933-7562
> Fax: 507-933-6292
>
> What I’m reading: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker