[LIBRARYDIR] Discarding periodicals

[Luce, Monica]

Erica,

I'm a bit opinionated about this, so you can take this with a HEAP of salt. I am by nature a hoarder and some of our librarians are de-clutterers. So we always have lively discussions about collection management.  Also, Highline does NOT have any space problems, so that changes the factors that we weigh in making retention decisions.

We have reviewed our periodical collection at least twice in the last six to eight years. There are some who really want to see it disappear, mostly based on usage statistics. I have always advocated for considering other factors.

I think database inclusion is tricky. Sometimes titles disappear. So keeping things in print if they are directly connected to an instructional program is important to us.

Another factor we discussed quite a bit was the diversity of our community and our desire to create a welcoming environment in the library. Several years ago we purchased some bookcases so that we could create a better periodical display area for current issues, and we thoroughly reviewed the list of periodicals we display with the diverse backgrounds and identities of our student body in mind. In our most recent review of our periodical collection, while we discarded a significant number of titles, we actually added some new subscriptions. I've told our library management team that I think it's important to continue these subscriptions even if we don't have much circulation of issues, because I think it's important for students to see periodicals like Latina Style, Out, India Currents, New African, and Sayyidati  alongside Ms., Forbes, Vogue, Consumer Reports, Road & Track, etc.

If you are interested in specifics, our collection development librarian would be happy to share the criteria we used and the types of reports he created for the reference librarians to review when they did the collection reviews.

Monica

From: LIBRARYDIR [mailto:librarydir-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Coe, Erica
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2017 12:13 PM
To: WACTC Library Directors <librarydir at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [LIBRARYDIR] Discarding periodicals

Hi all,

Prior to ALMA, we removed periodicals that were available in our databases.  Now we are preparing to review the remaining titles to determine what to remove.  We are hoping to reclaim some space to use for group and collaborative study.

What have you done at your college around your periodical collection? What guidelines have you followed for this process?

Thanks,
Erica
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ctc.edu/pipermail/librarydir_lists.ctc.edu/attachments/20170809/545485e9/attachment-0002.html>