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Weeding Policy

Weeding is the systematic inspection of selected areas of the collection to identify books for removal based on defined criteria, the review of those decisions by appropriate faculty, and eventually the orderly disposal of the identified books.

Weeding projects are initiated and carried out by professional librarians or by instructors in their subject areas. Historically, the members of the nursing and dental faculty have been very active in initiating weeding projects for their areas. Even when librarians initiate and carry out the weeding project, faculty in affected areas are given printed lists of books earmarked for weeding and encouraged to review them. They may override the library staff’s decision to weed any title; they may also come to the library and select additional items for weeding.

Library materials are weeded in various subject areas on a regular basis.

    • Every 3 years for medical titles
    • Every 5 years for sciences, technology and social sciences titles
    • Every 10 years for liberal arts, mathematics and history titles

There are five steps in the weeding process:

    • Selection and marking of materials
    • Creation of bibliographies and faculty review
    • Update of library records and removal of books from shelf
    • Offering weeded materials to other interested libraries
    • Removal of weeded materials from the library

There are four criteria used for deciding which books to weed:

    • Does the book contain outdated information?
    • Is it a duplicate and is the extra copy needed?
    • Do we have later editions of the same title?
    • Is it in poor physical condition?

Revised 9/2/03