Deselection
Regular lifecycle management of a library collection includes both acquisition and deselection; this ensures that the institutional collection remains relevant and of the best possible quality.
This list of deselections was created in accordance with the Senate Library Collections Policy. The Library is soliciting interdisciplinary feedback from Teaching Faculty. We appreciate your feedback by May 31 2023.
In instances where the materials are requisite for institutional teaching or institutional research at BU, please use the Retention Request form to submit criteria for retention of the item.
If any materials on the deselection list are of use only for your research or interest, rather than to the broader community teaching and research priorities, please use the Deselected Items Request form to request the item for your personal use. The most effective access that we can provide to esoteric resources is via Interlibrary Loan from our partner institutions, rather than keeping them in our Library "in case.
If any of the VHS or CD-ROM materials is relevant to current teaching and learning priorities, and should be replaced with the same content in a different format (if readily available), please use the Replacement Request form. You may also use this form to suggest a different title with similar content.
The Library acknowledges that the system statistics capture usage in a comprehensive, but not exhaustive, manner. This list was compiled through a shelf inventory. If you see items on the list that you know you have used (either in the Library, or via loan), please share this using the Report Statistical Errors form.
The Library has a history of not doing holistic deselection work due to a lack of professional Librarian workload capacity to do so. Over the course of decades, this resulted in overgrowth of the collection and significant impact on the accessibility of our spaces. To meet legislated accessibility requirements, mitigate hazards, and maximize student workspaces, the Library will do larger scale deselection now and over the next 2 years.
In accordance with our statistical usage criteria, this list consists of psychology, fine arts, and music items that: have not circulated in 20 years; are over 20 years old (and were not ordered in the last 20 years) or are otherwise outdated; that are not aligned with institutional teaching and research priorities; are duplicate copies.
In the Music collection, many of the items are at least 50 years old and have damage (e.g. browned pages, rips and tears).
The VHS and CD-ROM formats are considered obsolete and are increasingly challenging to technically support. In many cases this content has been replaced materials in current formats (e.g. DVDs, digital subscriptions). There is little recent loan activity on these items.
The Library has a history of not doing holistic deselection work due to a lack of professional Librarian workload capacity to do so. Over the course of decades, this resulted in overgrowth of the collection and significant impact on the accessibility of our spaces. To meet legislated accessibility requirements, mitigate hazards, and maximize student workspaces, the Library will do larger scale deselection now and over the next 2 years.
