-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Discarding bound journals...
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 12:44:07 -0400
From: David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>
Reply-To: dgoodman@princeton.edu
Organization: Princeton University Biology Library

An obvious first step for a general collection might be joining J-STOR
and
discarding the titles available there for the years available.

Your suggestion about short runs  seems logical, especially if they are
titles
widely held elsewhere.    There will I hope remain a considerable number
of
general and specialized libraries committed, as is mine, to the
preservation
in original format of everything owned that can be reasonably so
preserved.
Remember, as the late John Henneman, our history bibliographer, used to
say in
justifying his wide-ranging acquisitions, that "everything is or will be
history."

>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Discarding bound journals...
> Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 09:46:29 -0500
> From: "Pennington, Buddy" <buddy.pennington@rockhurst.edu>
>
> Hey all,
>
> Our library, like most, is facing a serious problem with not having the
> space to keep bound journals.  We are thinking about discarding titles,
> and
> I was wondering how others are doing it and if there are any
> 'guidelines' to
> doing it.  Options that I am considering are:
>
> 1.  Discarding older volumes (especially pre-1940).  I have thought
> about
> discarding the earliest 10 years of older runs and maybe doing that
> every 5
> or 10 years.  Research indicates that older articles, like older books,
> aren't used as much by library users.  Of course, the older volumes are
> the
> ones that are not available through FT databases and document delivery.
> However, we were planning on checking OCLC to see how many libraries
> have
> the volumes we would be getting rid of.  In this way, we could tell if
> the
> volumes were readily available elsewhere or if they were relatively rare
> and
> needed to be kept.
>
> 2.  Discarding short runs of titles.  We have some titles were we only
> one a
> few years (several in the 1970's and 1980's).  It seems to me to be
> counter-intuitive to keep such short runs on our shelves.
>
> If you are faced with the same task, let me know what your library is
> doing!
>
> Buddy Pennington
> Acquisitions/Serials Librarian
> Rockhurst University Greenlease Library
> buddy.pennington@rockhurst.edu
> #816-501-4143

--
David Goodman
Biology Librarian, and
Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force
Princeton University Library
dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627