Designing Collections with Shrinking Budgets and Limited Space

1. FINDING THE RIGHT FIT
Designing Collections with Shrinking Budgets
and Limited Space
Marianne Hebert
SUNY Potsdam
SUNYLA 2012
http://www.slideshare.net/hebertm3308/sunyla-2012-finding-the-right-fit

2. Scope of the Weeding Project
• Crumb Library shelf capacity has been at 0% growth for
many years.
• Since 2006, librarians committed to weeding 1-2 hours or
one truck per week. Few librarians met their goal, despite
repeated reminders, nagging and scolding.
• 2014 Renovation Project - we need to shift the ENTIRE
stacks collection in the Summer of 2012
• ALL volumes on the lower level need to be moved to the
2nd floor
• Need to free up ~526+ shelves or roughly 11,000 volumes
in ~ 5 months (8 volumes per linear foot and 2.75 feet per shelf)

3. New Weeding Plan (January 2012)
• Two Subcommittees (Collection Development
Coordinator)
• Periodicals (three CD librarians)
• Monographs (three CD librarians + new hire)
• Reference (Reference Coordinator)
• Government Document (Gov Docs Librarian)
• Education (Education Librarian Liaison)

4. Target Collections for Weeding Review
Collection Development Committee decision:
• All bound periodicals with zero circulation or low use
• Books in main Stacks collection (1850-1950) with zero
circs

5. Aleph Reports – Monographs
• ALEPH p_custom_56 Items with zero circulation
• SUBLIBRARY: POTMN
• Collection code: FBKS
• Transaction date from: 00/00/0000
• Transaction date to: 12/12/2011
• Publication date from: 1850
• Publication date to: 1950
• Include transactions: loans, renewals, in-house
• Output includes all items (periodicals, media, etc. in FBKS)
• Output edited in excel to delete all items statuses other than blanks (e.g. WD, LO,
MS, SB, BD, etc.)
• Edited to clean up ascii character errors
• Edited to delete periodicals and annuals
• Note that this report will include multi-volume titles that are likely to have
both items with zero circs as well as items with several circs.

6. Aleph Reports – Periodicals
• p-custom-56 Items with zero circulation
• SUBLIBRARY: POTMN
• Collection code: F1PER (Bound periodicals in stacks)
• Transaction Date From: 20020101
• Transaction Date To: 20111129
• Publication Date To: 0000
• Publication Date from: 2013
• Include the following transactions: Loans Renewals and
Inhouse
• Note that this report will include multi-volume titles that are
likely to have both items with zero circs as well as items with
several circs

7. Periodicals in FBKS Collection Code
• GUI search on collection code “FBKS” and document type
“periodical” to get all bound volumes that had not been
transferred to F1PER. Save set to server.
• Services General p-manage-70 to convert records
from BIB-to-ITEM
• Services Items  p_ret_adm_01 to print circ data for
the set.
• Titles with zero circ were added to weeding spreadsheet
above

8. Sub-Committee Tasks - Gather Data
1. ALEPH Circulation Histories (including in-house) prior to 2003
2. ALEPH Circulation data for multivolume sets
3. Serials Solutions Click through statistics (2007-2011)
4. Is it available full text online?
• Monographs – HathiTrust, Google Books, Archives.org, esp for pre-1922
publications
• Periodicals - Serials Solutions Holding data, publisher sites
5. Do we have the finding tool? Is the periodical indexed anywhere?
https://ulrichsweb.serialssolutions.com/
6. Who is this author, person, topic? Check reference sources (Credo,
Wikipedia) for background information as necessary
7. Is it currently being cited in the literature? (Google Scholar)
8. Do we other editions, copies, etc. (ALEPH)
9. If the circulation use was low or seldom, was it ILL?
• ILLiad canned reports (most loaned journals, most loaned mono)
10. Check JSTOR for “old” book reviews
11. Sometimes data just isn’t enough. Look on the shelf!

9. Last Copy in SUNY?
• Checking periodicals was complicated…some holdings were split
among several SUNYs
• Issue of multiple OCLC records, especially for monographs
• Some serial holdings were on different records
(preceding/succeeding titles=mixed up cataloging)
• How many editions of a title should SUNY keep? All? Which ones?
• Although we value the concept of Last Copy in SUNY…
• We didn’t have resources to check the holdings and post lists,
• We didn’t have the space to store volumes, or package and send
• It would slow us down
• Executive decision was made to NOT offer our discards
• We check last copy on a case-by-case basis, e.g. cool stuff

10. Last Copy in SUNY Test
Of 110 periodicals titles targeted for withdrawal during the
first week, 7 titles were identified as “last copy”
• Eastern economic journal. v. 62 (2002) - v. 65 (2005)
• The American midland naturalist. v. 147 (2002) – v. 156 (2006)
• Economic development review. v. 7 (1989) - v. 17 (2000)
• Canadian seismograph operations. 1974 - 1976
• The journal of behavioral health services & research. v. 25 (1998)-v. 28 (2001)
• Report. Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Milk Hygiene. no. 3 (1970)
• Texts of communiques and declarations issued after meetings held at
ministerial level during .. / North Atlantic Council. 1997-1998

11. Weeding Spreadsheets
1. Excel files were split among librarian team members
2. Each librarian reviewed ~50-100 items per week.
• Add “Gather Data” information
• Add their personal recommendation (Keep, Withdraw, Review Later)
3. Spreadsheets are saved to a shared network folder
4. CD Coordinator merges the 3 spreadsheets into one and
uploads to Google Docs:
• Books Example http://bit.ly/KYD8sx
• Periodicals Example http://bit.ly/KaReUV
5. Librarians then review other’s recommendations, and add
their own recommendation and comments
6. Weekly weeding meeting, titles in “dispute” are discussed
and a FINAL decision is made.
K+W=R

12. Weeding Spreadsheets Follow-up
• Track titles that need meta data work (e.g. add Content
notes or Subject Headings) or journal titles to be added to
Serials Solutions. Future plan to catalog freebies online
• Track areas or genres that need to be updated (e.g.
“World Literature”) with future purchases
• Update Serials Solutions for missing journal titles or found
FT online
• Coordinator takes FINAL spreadsheet and moves “Keep”
and ”Review” to other spreadsheets
• The Final Withdraw spreadsheet is “cleaned up” before
presenting to faculty for their input

13. Communicating with Faculty
• Project was announced and described at the Liaisons Luncheon held
at the beginning of the Spring Semester
• It was announced in the Library’s Spring Newsletter:
http://www.libraries.potsdam.edu/about/newsletters/spring2012_news.pdf
• At the beginning of the project, the Library Director sent an email to all
faculty about the project:
http://potsdam.libguides.com/content.php?pid=301733&sid=2472950
• Each week, a spreadsheet is uploaded to the LibGuides Weeding
Project page http://potsdam.libguides.com/weeding
• Each week, a weeding list email is sent to Departmental Faculty
Liaisons who forward it to departmental colleagues
• Faculty Feedback form is a Google doc:
• http://bit.ly/M1i5DT
• Weeding spreadsheets expire in two weeks, after which they are sent
to Technical Services for processing
• An update for Faculty was published in the Library’s Summer
newsletter:
• http://www.lib.potsdam.edu/about/newsletters/summer2012_news.pdf

14. Communicating with Faculty
Along with the weekly “Weeding update” email to Faculty
Liaisons, we include interesting facts about our collections:
• 13,500 items published between 1850 and 1950 have had
zero circulation since 2003
• We do not have a great track record for predicting what
students will need. ~40% of the monographs we
purchased between 2005-2009 have not circulated
• S. R. Ranganathan’s The Five laws of library science
• Age of the Collection data (SBII)
• Age of monographs that circulated in 2011
• Donovan, C. A. (1995). On my mind: Deselection and the
Classics. American Libraries, 26(11), 1110.

15. About Our Collections
ALEPH SBII

16. Publication Bib Record % of Bib Record
Year Range Count Total (By Row)
0000-1849 239 0.088%
1850-1899 1,779 0.652%
SBII 1900-1909
1910-1919
1,406
1,237
0.515%
0.453%
1920-1929 2,320 0.850%
Uniqueness / 1930-1939 4,051 1.484%
1940-1949 6,799 2.491%
Age Analysis 1950-1959 17,171 6.290%
1960-1969 60,297 22.089%
1970-1979 44,142 16.171%
1980-1989 42,744 15.659%
1990-1999 37,347 13.682%
2000-2009 49,986 18.312%
2010-2019 3,184 1.166%
Unknown 268 0.098%
TOTAL 272,970 100.000%
Pre-1950 17,831 6.532%

17. SBII
Uniquen
ess / Age
Analysis

18. SUNY Business Intelligence Initiative Data
• Very general overall picture of the age of the collections
• Cannot limit by:
• Collection Code
• Sublibrary (we have 3)
• Material Type
• How I did it:
• Uniqueness/Age Analysis tab
• Parameters: Campus Name Publication Year  Range Bib
record count

19. SBII – Circulation is Declining
• http://www2.potsdam.edu/hebertm/SBII%20Circulation%20-%202006-2010.html

20. Circulation Data for 2011
ALEPH Services p-custom-51 (Circulation Stats by title)
• Collection code: FBKS
• Transaction Date range: Jan. 1, 2011-Dec. 31, 2011
• Publication dates 1850 to 2012
• Min number of transactions: 1
• Include the following transactions: Loans only, no
renewals, no inhouse
Import into Excel. To get percentages by date and LC, sort
columns and count rows for each decade and class
manually.

21. Title Year Call Number # of LOANS
The creative curriculum for preschool / Diane Trister Dodge, Laura J. Colker,Sheard NNY ECDC
2002 372.19 D62 Cate Heroman ; Toni S. 1
An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of1955nations. AC1 .G72 v. Crumb Stacks 1
Dialogues. / translated by Benjamin Jowett. The seventh letter /AC1 .G72 v.7 Crumb Stacks
1955 translated by J. Harward. 1
Mythologies. Selected and translated from the French1972 by Annette Lavers.
AC25 .B3132 Crumb Stacks 2
Do museums still need objects? / Steven Conn. 2010 AM11 .C63 2010 Crumb Stacks 1
Museums and galleries of New York City. 2002 AM13.N5 M87 2002 Crumb Stacks 1
Museum collection storage / E. Verner Johnson and Joanne C. Horgan. .J63 Crumb Stacks
1979 AM133 1
Care of collections / edited by Simon Knell. 1994 AM141 .K54 1994 Crumb Stacks 1
Who owns the past? : cultural policy, cultural property, and the AM221 .W48 2005 Crumb Stacks
2005 law / Kate Fitz Gibbon, editor. 2
Caring for your collections / National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property ; Arthur
1992 AM303 .C37 1992 Crumb Stacks 1
Sigmund Freud and art : his personal collection of antiquities / introduction S54 1989Gay ; edited
1989 AM401.F74 by Peter Crumb Stacks 1
Museums in motion : an introduction to the history and functions of museums / Edward P. Alexander ;
1979 AM5 .A38 Crumb Stacks 1
The museum educator's manual : educators share successful techniques / Anna Johnson ... [et al.].
2009 AM7 .M866 2009 Crumb Stacks 1
Museum frictions : public cultures/global transformations / edited by.M8729 2006[et. al.] ;Stacks
2006 AM7 Ivan Karp ... Crumb with 1
Whose culture? : the promise of museums and the debate over AM7 .W47 2009 Crumb Stacks
2009 antiquities / edited by James Cuno. 2
John Cage at seventy-five / edited by Richard Fleming 1989William Duckworth.
and AP2 .B887 v. Crumb Stacks 1
Phenomenology, structuralism, semiology / edited by 1976 R. Garvin.
Harry AP2 .B887 v. Crumb Stacks 1
New essays in ecofeminist literary criticism / edited by Glynis Carr. .B887 v.44 no.1 Crumb Stacks
2000 AP2 1
A guidebook to learning : for a lifelong pursuit of wisdom / Mortimer J..A35 1986 Crumb Stacks
1986 AZ221 Adler. 2
Church & learning in the Byzantine Empire, 867-1185.1963 AZ321 .H8 1963 Crumb Stacks 1
The possibility of practical reason / J. David Velleman.2000 B105.A35 V435 2000 Crumb Stacks 1
The intentional stance / Daniel C. Dennett. 1987 B105.I56 D46 1987 Crumb Stacks 1
Practical reason and norms / Joseph Raz. 1999 B105.N65 R39 1999 Crumb Stacks 1
Seeds of virtue and knowledge / Maryanne Cline Horowitz. 1998 B105.S43 H67 1998 Crumb Stacks 1
Eight women philosophers : theory, politics, and feminism / Jane Duran. D87 2006 Crumb Stacks
2006 B105.W6 1
Presenting women philosophers / edited by Cecile T. Tougas and Sara Ebenreck. Crumb Stacks
2000 B105.W6 P74 2000 1
Francis Bacon and the modern dilemma [by] Loren Eiseley. 1962 B1198 .E4 C.3 Crumb Stacks 1
Francis Bacon, philosopher of industrial science. 1949 B1198 .F3 Crumb Stacks 1

22. # of titles
% of titles that
CALL NUMBER that
circulated
circulated
A -- GENERAL WORKS 20 0.2%
B -- PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY. RELIGION 805 7.3%
C -- AUXILIARY SCIENCES OF HISTORY 69 0.6%
% of Titles
D -- WORLD HISTORY 846 7.7%
that
E -- HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS 522 4.7%
F -- HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS 208 1.9% circulated
G -- GEOGRAPHY. ANTHROPOLOGY. RECREATION
H -- SOCIAL SCIENCES
514
1340
4.7%
12.1%
in 2011 by
J -- POLITICAL SCIENCE 169 1.5% LC Class
K -- LAW 118 1.1%
L -- EDUCATION 617 5.6%
N -- FINE ARTS 2099 19.0%
P -- LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 2096 19.0%
Q -- SCIENCE 853 7.7%
C4D
R -- MEDICINE 397 3.6% Aspirational
S -- AGRICULTURE 49 0.4%
T -- TECHNOLOGY 228 2.1%
Strengths
U -- MILITARY SCIENCE 31 0.3%
V -- NAVAL SCIENCE 3 0.0%
Z -- BIBLIOGRAPHY. LIBRARY SCIENCE 26 0.2%

23. % of Titles that circulated in 2011
by LC CLASSIFICATION
Z -- BIBLIOGRAPHY.
LIBRARY SCIENCE
V -- NAVAL SCIENCE
A -- GENERAL WORKS
U -- MILITARY SCIENCE
B -- PHILOSOPHY.
T -- TECHNOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY. RELIGION
S -- AGRICULTURE
C -- AUXILIARY
R -- MEDICINE SCIENCES OF HISTORY
D -- WORLD HISTORY
Q --
SCIENCE
E -- HISTORY OF THE
AMERICAS
F -- HISTORY OF THE
AMERICAS
P -- LANGUAGE AND G -- GEOGRAPHY.
LITERATURE ANTHROPOLOGY.
RECREATION
H -- SOCIAL
SCIENCES
N -- FINE ARTS
J -- POLITICAL SCIENCE
K -- LAW
L -- EDUCATION

24. PUBLICATION # of titles that % of titles that
DATE Circulated 2011 Circulated
2000-2012 4037 36.6%
1990-1999 2256 20.4%
1980-1989 1269 11.5%
1970-1979 1006 9.1%
1960-1969 1312 11.9%
1950-1959 507 4.6%
1940-1949 180 1.6%
1930-1939 102 0.9%
1920-1929 47 0.4%
1910-1919 31 0.3%
1900-1909 35 0.3%
1850-1899 40 0.4%
TOTAL 10822 100%
1850-1949 435 3.9%

25. % of titles that Circulated in 2011
by Publication Date Decade
1920-1929 1910-1919
1930-1939
1900-1909
1850-1899
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
2000-2012
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999

26. 2011 Circulation Data by Publication Date
• Total titles that circulated: 11,034
• 2018 titles circulated more than once: 18%
• 36% of the titles that circulated were published since
2000.
• 3.9% of the books that circulated were published prior
to 1950.
• 25 titles circulated more than 10 times
• The title with highest circs: 38

27. Faculty Feedback so far…
• Mostly, faculty wanted the discarded books for their
offices / departments (the answer was NO)
• 11 faculty submitted requests to “Keep” (26 titles) via the
Feedback form (we kept all)
• 3 faculty contacted me directly via email
• A few didn’t make their deadline (expiration date) and the
books were gone
• When faculty make it clear what their assignments are
(e.g. history of psychology, Victorian novels, history of
technology), we simply either keep titles that would be
good (despite zero use), or I contact them directly for
feedback

28. Tracking progress - Monographs

29. Tracking Progress - Periodicals

30. Disposition of Materials
1. Local Used Book Dealer (already on contract)
2. Better World Books (already a partner)
• BWB Sidewalk sale: http://www.betterworldbooks.com/category-
H0.aspx?SuffixId=31499
3. Dumpster

31. Dealing with Weeding Angst
Someone might need this/want this/use this someday!
• Students are not finding these books, or they are not
finding them useful
• We are weeding part of the collection that has lowest use
• We admit upfront that we will probably make weeding mistakes
• We’ve made lots of mistakes in the past by buying books that
never circulated
• We don’t fret about all the books we should have
purchased, but didn’t
• Many of these books served their purpose back in their day but
are no longer useful today

32. Weeding Angst
• We continue to make not-so-good purchase decisions
today: we continue to purchase materials that don’t get
used
• Curriculum has changed. Course assignments have
changed, and materials are no longer relevant
• We have newer or better materials on the same subject
• We are expending a great deal of time, money and
professional expertise managing collections that are only
partially useful to our users
• Weeded shelves make browsing easier.
• We are not a research institution. Our collection
development policy provides the framework for building
the collections.

33. Weeding Angst
• Even if we retain books that aren’t used, if we don’t
change something (discovery, metadata, faculty
assignments) the likelihood they will ever be used is
slim
• Materials with old publication dates don’t rise to the top of
results screens
• Read Jenica Roger’s Attempting Elegance Blog Posts
about the weeding project:
http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?cat=38

34. Weeding Angst
Unanswered Questions
• If ILL is the only user of an item, should we keep it
anyway?
• Most of our older materials are “primary sources,” but our
current discovery tools make them difficult to discover
• Better metadata might help students find the cool books
that don’t circulate, but recataloging these books is not
practical

35. Collections as a Service
• Traditionally we have built the collections with the mindset
that "good" books should be on the shelves. While this is
still true, now when we purchase books, it is more
important to think about "what research projects are being
assigned NOW, and which books will be needed to fulfill
student research needs NOW?" We are shifting away
from a just-in-case mindset to just-in-time.

36. Keeping books on the shelf is not free
• Shifting collections as LC areas shrink and grow
• Shelf reading
• Relabeling faded spine labels
• Database maintenance, authority work
• Lost / Search processes
• We lend them on ILL
• Books that are not used take up a lot of real estate
that could be put to better use
• "It costs $4.26 to keep a book on the shelf per year" - The
Status Quo Has Got To Go:
http://www.theconferencecircuit.com/2011/11/06/the-
status-quo-has-got-to-go/

37. Student research behavior has change
Students do not use traditional research strategies
• They don’t intuitively come to the library to do research
• They start their research in Wikipedia and Google Scholar
• They find library catalogs and databases difficult to use
• They don’t use print indexes or print journals
• They don’t browse the stacks
• They expect easy and instant access to information
• Students don't always need a specific book or article, they
just need "something" on their topic
• Students aren’t likely to use library resources unless their
faculty require it a part of their assignment.
• Most students don’t read Kierkegaard or other classic authors
unless it is assigned.

38. Positive Outcomes
• We are MUCH more familiar with the collections
• We are identifying areas of the collection that need to be
updated
• We are making connections with faculty who use the
collections
• We are having better conversations with some faculty
about building and using the collections
• SUNY Potsdam Weeding Teams are AWESOME and
doing good work.

39. Maintain a Sense of Humor
What if we have a societal meltdown and the government
shuts down the internet? (Egypt 2012).
• We wouldn’t be able to access HathiTrust or our
electronic resources
• We would need print books on how to live off the land:
“Foods America gave the world; the strange, fascinating and often
romantic histories of many native American food plants, their origin and
other interesting and curious facts concerning them. 1937”
• That one was a KEEPER!

40. Weeding Treats Required

41. Questions?
• Marianne Hebert
• hebertm@potsdam.edu
• 315 265-0756
http://www.slideshare.net/hebertm3308/sunyla-2012-
finding-the-right-fit