Presenter: David Burke Starting in 2017, Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University initiated a long-overdue collection review of the monograph collection. This is partly to ensure a healthy collection with room for growth, but also to prepare for a renovation of the building--ideally by the summer of 2019. This presentation will explore the ongoing process of organizing and enacting this weeding project. This includes using OCLC’s GreenGlass software to assist liaison librarians with selection, the criteria developed for deselection, and incorporating faculty participation in the project without undermining it. There is also intensive training of student workers to pull the proper books, withdraw them from the catalog and WorldCat, and dispose of them. The talk will highlight the ongoing challenges related to this project, which hopefully would encourage some discussion of the issues.

1. MANAGING A MASS COLLECTIONS REVIEW FROM
ASSESSMENT TO DESELECTION
David Burke
Managing Librarian for Description Management
Villanova University
June 9, 2018

2. THE NEED TO WEED
• Preparation for a building renovation
• Campus-wide report demonstrated need for more study space on campus
• Past faculty complaints of students using outdated research
• No formal, overall, or systematic collections review in the past
• Evolving trends in collection building
• Electronic over print formats
• New collaborative collection building over multiple libraries (e.g.,
HathiTrust, EAST, PALCI)

3. TIMELINE
• January 2017: Director announces collection review to staff, and GreenGlass will help
narrow decisions
• March 2017: bibliographic, item, and circulation data sent to OCLC to load into
GreenGlass
• April 2017: Villanova’s GreenGlass instance goes live, training soon follows
• Summer 2017: 2 task forces created
Collections Review Working Group
GreenGlass Data Analysis Working Group
• August 2017: Collections Review Task Force convenes to oversee collection review
processes and adjust as necessary

4. • September 2017: Director talks to Provost, Deans, and Faculty Senate to announce
and justify the need for the review ; AI librarians do the same with their assigned
departments and begin preparing lists for public review
• October 2017: first lists made publicly available for faculty review ; online forms
created to allow faculty to request titles remain in collection or added to their personal
libraries
• November 2017: student workers use October lists to pull books from shelves and
remove from catalog ; first batch shipped to Better World Books ; new lists made
available for review while old lists taken down

5. BASELINE WEEDING CRITERIA
• Purchased prior to 2006
• Never circulated in past ten years
• Widely available in other libraries (40+ in U.S., 4+ in Penn.)
Liaisons free to “interpret” guidelines as they see fit

6. • Product of OCLC, Sustainable Collections Services (SCS)
• “Visualize and model your collection.”
• Promotional website: http://www.oclc.org/en/sustainable-
collections/features.html
• 215 libraries using GreenGlass (ca. April 2018)

8. REMEDIATION LISTS

9. VISUALIZATIONS

11. RAW GREENGLASS REPORT

12. EDITED REPORT FOR FACULTY REVIEW

13. FACULTY REQUEST FORM

14. REACTIONS: LIBRARIANS
• Use of GreenGlass data & base criteria varied between liaison librarians
• OCLC holdings the least used datapoint
• How many check-outs were ILL; how many uses did not involve check-out
• Great for weeding in-bulk by answering easy questions
• Some usability issues (e.g., cannot download visualizations)
• Easier to share lists of interdisciplinary titles
• Discovered more post-1923 books are public domain and in HathiTrust than
expected
• Hope to inaugurate more systematic approach to collection review

15. REACTIONS: FACULTY
• Volume of GreenGlass data appeased those from whom we most needed support
(provost, deans, most department chairs)
• Most faculty silent on the project
• Appreciation for opportunity to claim weeded books for themselves
• Some vocal dissenters, most placated through further explanation
• Concerns of a weeding “quota”
• Over-reactions to limited titles on weeding lists (e.g., copy of The Republic listed
isn’t only one Library has)
• Some feel lists too long to review in a month
• Some diehard advocates of print over electronic under any and all circumstances

16. CIRCULATION ANALYSES

17. DIRECTIONS TO CUT-&-PASTE FROM SPREADSHEETS

18. GREENGLASS ASSESSMENT
• Amount of data and graphics makes for a great public relations tool
• Librarians mostly made decisions based on circulation data—readily available locally
in Voyager
• Cannot download graphics
• Faculty suggestions: Include citation counts and publisher for each title
• For holdings include metropolitan areas as option
• Some flaws in data (partly mistakes on our part)

19. NEXT STEPS
• New data run in GreenGlass, Winter 2019
• Cleanup of any remaining/new remediation candidates
• Full inventory of remaining collection
• Make collection reviews routine
• Educate faculty on costs of print retention

20. QUESTIONS?
David Burke
Villanova University
610-519-7365
david.burke@villanova.edu