Hello Colleagues,
I've had some great responses with practical information regarding
weeding criteria in the art library, but many, many more comments
asking to share any information with the list.
So if you have been waiting to chime in with some practical help,
thoughts about the effect of digital book projects on weeding, or the
like, or thoughts on what is unique about the art library weeding vs.
other disciplines, bring on your wisdom! Others are looking for
guidance as well.
Here is what I've received so far, preserving the anonymity of the respondent.
1. ARLIS UK/Ireland Website.
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/pan/12529/20070825/www.arlis.org.uk/publ/stoc.html
Guidelines for Stock Disposal. c2000
2. One aspect to consider when weeding art books is the quality and
quantity of images. If a book is low-circulating, but has a great
deal of exemplary images, I might hold it back. We rely heavily on
our circ statistics to make decisions on a title-by-title basis. We
do have off-site storage here so we rarely have to do any real
weeding. In that case, I would first try hard to get rid of any
duplicate copies (barring any very high-circulating items - tag those
as "reserve" or "library use only") and older editions. I might be
willing to scrap a paper copy for digital (in an extreme situation)
only if the images were all there and of equal or better quality -
and if the e-version was owned by the library (not leased). Of
course, bound journals take up a lot of room. We're moving out a lot
of material we get via JSTOR. Not exactly weeding yet - but we have
a program with Duke called "single copy". We each take
responsibility for certain titles and share those titles - so only
one copy sits in storage.
3. Paraphrasing one respondent who prefers to maintain anonymous: She
warns against using circulation stats as the major critieria. Art and
architecture students don't always check books out, they browse the
whole shelf, or group, of books related to a single artist or a type
of art. Older books with poor illustrations might be weeded, unless
the text is by an influential art historian or critic. In a
discipline which depends on visual images, the more you can keep, the
better. Perhaps none of your (say) ten books on a major European
artist have left the library, but they may have been
consulted many times on site. She encourages counting in-house use
stats on books left on tables or picked up for reshelving...this will
help if circulation stats are the major criteria. If currently using
a off-site storage area, don't discard until you see what is called
back from storage, because what seems useless today has a way of
being the ONLY thing wanted tomorrow, and you need to reinstate it.I
do think multiple copies can be eliminated (depends on your curriculum).
4. I am constantly weeding due to lack of space. I treat art books
the same as any other book. We do not have any ebooks and digitized
book projects have had no effect.
Considerations on whether an item is weeded or not:
- number of circs since it was added to the collection
- uniqueness within the collection
- does it fill a gap in the collection
- is it out of print or rare
- physical condition of the item
- is the information valid (i.e. art law, health issues)
- do we have better books in the collection on the subject
5. I have many thoughts for you but I am sure you will be inundated
with suggestions so I will give you one thought. If you find a good
place to send the books you choose to deaccession, you will feel better.
We donate our books to the Prison Library Reading Program in ___. You
might have something like that in Maine but we feel ok about
deaccessioning books when we know that they go to places where people
have nothing and get no funding for books.
6. I am constantly weeding & de-accessioning as our space is not getting
bigger any time soon but we are still adding books & exhibition
catalogs. As far as having a defined policy, mine is to stick very
strictly to the mission of the School - which in my case is easy as it's
full title is"_______ School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture
Anything that doesn't fit into the remit is at risk of being pulled.
Despite some people thinking that art books shouldn't be weeded because
the information doesn't become obsolete (I heard that said in a
collection development class), practically I remove things where the
majority of images are b&w or in bad color reproduction, unless it is
the only example we have of an artist's work. I also remove items that
are out of remit, keeping on a few (Goya or Durer etchings, for example)
that serve to compliment the rest of the artist's oeuvre. This of course
means pretty much going title by title. As we have a non-circulating
collection, there's no reports I can pull to see what is being taken
out. However, by keeping an eye on what's used, and what we have to
represent certain aspects of art, I can make a judgment call as to what
to keep in the stacks and what gets pulled. A lot depends on the size of
your collection as to the practicalities of title by title weeding. Is
it at all possible to gain on-site storage somewhere for items that do
not necessarily need to be in the stacks but should be somewhat
accessible? That might work to help in the decision-making process of
what goes & what stays. I hope this helps. Good luck!
Have a great day!
Margaret Ericson, Art and Music Librarian, Colby College Libraries
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