Material being removed from the collection may be disposed of by one of the following methods:
1. Recycle. for poor quality material that will have no further value to anyone.
2. Distribution on the library free table. The library maintains a table that offers free items. Patrons who wish to keep one of these books may do so. If more than five books are on the table unclaimed, remove one by another method.
3. Donation to Better World Books. Periodic purges are necessary to keep the volume manageable for our space. The Better World Books process allows us to ship a minimum of 15 cases for books at no cost to Better World Books. They determine what will be kept or recycled. They do resell the books, but the process allows us to ensure continued life or appropriate recycling at no cost to us. Occasional removals are not stored until we can support 15 cases. They are disposed of individually.
No matter the reason for the deaccession, the book is removed in Koha and labelled as withdrawn in the item record.
Deaccession is only done by, or with the approval of, the Director of Library Services.
Under normal circumstances, only one book at a time is removed, typically because it is discovered to be outdated or in poor quality. These books are listed in an excel spreadsheet(deaccession form) housed in the Library shared drive.
Biannually we conduct shelf reviews to determine the currency of entire topical areas. A different section is evaluated each semester, resulting in a full review every five years. Determination is made on which books to replace according to the deaccession policy and when their replacement arrives, they are pulled and listed on the deaccession form.
Periodically, typically every seven to ten years, an assessment is made to determine if enough books are out of date or the shelves are so crowded that a significant purge is warranted. Under this circumstance, the deaccession form is not filled out and a new one is restarted once the purge is completed. Each book is removed in Koha.
All staff are required to read all policies and procedures, including information about Texas State Bill 60, as part of their initial training. Additional training is provided as appropriate, for example, when a poor condition book is identified, the areas of concerns are shown to the employee so they can make their own judgement in the future. Because weeding is an ongoing and daily process, there will be ample opportunity for training.
All library policies are available on the library website, including information on withdrawing materials. Faculty are urged at least twice a year to review their sections of the library to identify outdated material and provide suggestions for replacement. The full process is described in these pages.
In addition to books there are several other types of media, including periodicals, E-books, audiobooks, DVDs/CDs, tapes and other media. Of these, the library only offers periodicals. No policy is necessary for the other types of items.
Periodicals are not logged into the ILS and so do not need to be removed. Periodicals are purged periodically by placing them on the free table. When a section that holds back issues is too full to add additional copies, all but the current copy are removed and placed on the free table to be taken by the first interested person. Annually, in December, all periodicals are purged leaving only one copy of each. This purge is announced through inter-school communication methods. Any items left at the end of January are recycled.
The library has E-books that are offered through our Consortium, TexShare. Golemon Library has no control over the titles or their accession/deaccession.