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Sustainable Collections Project: Home

The SC project is a large-scale evidenced based deselection process to identify low or no use print monographs that could be removed from the collection. The project also identifies monographs that are low-use but need to be preserved (rare).

Van Wylen Library


"I'm full!"


Purpose of the Project

The Hope College Van Wylen Library is now over 25 years old. It was built to accommodate 20 years of collection growth. While the acquisition of e-books has slowed growth somewhat, our shelves are full.  In addition, we want to create new spaces for student collaboration, technology and other support services, and make the remaining collections more attractive and usable for students. The Sustainable Collection Project is a large-scale "weeding" project that will identify low or no use print monographs that could be weeded from the collection. The project will also identify monographs that need to be preserved because they are rare or not widely held by other academic libraries.

 

See Our Blog Article About the Project

Criteria for Withdrawal

Candidates for withdrawal are identified through the application of specific filters or criteria. In general, books that have been held in the collection but not used in the past 23 years and are readily accessible from other libraries via MeL and Interlibrary Loan are prime candidates for withdrawal. To be considered for withdrawal, all of the following criteria must be met:

  1. A book was published or added to the collection prior to 2000.
  2. A book has circulated 0 or 1 time since 1989.
  3. A book is held by more than 50 other academic libraries nationwide (in OCLC)
  4. A book is held by more than 3 peer libraries in Michigan (MeLCat)
  5. A book is not rare

CLICK HERE TO SEE LISTS OF WITHDRAWAL AND PRESERVATION CANDIDATES

Faculty Involvement

Faculty have the opportunity for input into the deselection of books from the Van Wylen Library and the Music Library in two ways.  Lists of book titles that are candidates for withdrawal will be listed on this website on the Lists tab.  Faculty may download Excel files by call number range and communicate which titles they would like to preserve by indicating a reason for retention on the spreadsheet.  Faculty may also come to the library and browse the shelves. All titles that are withdrawal candidates will be marked with a GREEN flag. If faculty would like to retain a specific title, they should remove the green flag and insert a RED flag, indicating the reason for retention on the red flag and printing your last name on the flag. WATCH FOR UPDATES AND DEADLINES FOR REVIEWING TITLES.