Ebook acquisitions are ubiquitous, due to the increasing availability of ebook collections, individual purchases, acquisition/purchasing options, providers, platforms, and breadth of subject matter included. Additionally, the concept of permanent library ebook collections is no longer a novelty, which calls into question the quality of previous purchases.
Prompted by the tremendous increase of ebooks in our academic four-year institution library's collection, our ebooks-preferred acquisition policy, the complexities and constraints of ebooks use, and no obvious end in sight to the number of ebooks acquired, we investigated and recommended an ebook deselection policy to deal with these complex issues.
This project was taken on by two librarians, a subject liaison librarian and the electronic resources librarian, to combine their expertise to work on evaluating the collection for deselection. We developed criteria and methodology to identify and deselect ebooks. This weeding effort is an ongoing one. Initially, we decided to evaluate a percentage of the collection and look at the material where accuracy of information and timeliness matter the most. Some of the factors that affected our decisions include, usage, date of publication, currency of content (relative to subject matter), Digital Rights Management (DRM), availability of newer editions, relevancy to the collection, and the acquisition model (subscription, Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA), outright purchase).
This presentation will be a step-by-step guide to the process of starting your adventure in ebook weeding. It is important for libraries to maintain our evolving collections to meet our patrons' needs.
