In reply to Melanie Thomas <mthomas@LIBRARY.MTSU.EDU> ...

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, the Killam Library
(which houses our Social Science & Humanities and Science collections) has
just completed a major periodicals weeding project, through which we weeded a
total of 711 titles (4,926 volumes).  The majority of these (635
titles/4,321 volumes) were SSH titles, as our Science librarians have more
regularly weeded their collection as summer projects.

The purpose of the exercise was two-fold:  to weed titles no longer
considered relevant to our collection, and to reduce the number of
dead and cancelled periodicals titles still requiring RECON for our
on-line public catalogue for titles.

Though all current subscriptions, and most related titles, have been catalogued
online, many dead and cancelled titles remain, as does our manual Kardex
records, awaiting the completion of RECON and the successful
implementation of on-line check-in!

Student Assistants made two photocopies of the holdings cards of each Kardex
title which did not indicate that the title had been catalogued online, noting
on one photocopy the fund which had purchased the title.  On completion
one set of these was sorted by fund and sent to the relevant Subject
Specialists for a decision on each as to whether the title should be retained
(and eventually catalogued on-line) or withdrawn.  The second copy was
retained in the Serials Dept. to ensure that a decision was made on every
title.  Collections Support Services staff then withdrew the designated
titles/volumes, and Cataloguing and Serials staff updated our manual
cataloguing records.

As resources permit, the photocopies of the titles retained will become
the source data for the RECON project, beginning with those titles
identified as having records online for the holdings of other libraries in
our Novanet Consortium.  A Student Assistant is separating these out now,
by checking the photocopies on-line.

Alison T. McNair
Head of Collections Support Services
Killam Library
Dalhousie University
Halifax, NS, Canada
B3H  4H8

Phone:  (902)-494-6691
Fax:    (902)-494-2062
E-Mail: Alison.McNair@dal.ca