Weeding book collections in the age of the Internet

Abstract

The weeding project at Southeast Missouri State University presented an opportunity to identify different variables, i.e. shelf level, book jackets, added entries, and untraced series, that impacted a book’s circulation behavior and to consider the relationship between circulation and the Internet/online database activity. Using the political science collection, the investigator found that shelf level has the strongest impact on circulation among the variables studied, but the Internet and electronic reference databases have an even greater influence on circulation. Surprisingly, one of the conclusions was that 61 percent of the political science collection either circulated only once or never circulated. It is argued that because of the pressures the Internet and electronic reference databases are placing on book collections and their use it is more important than ever to identify new collection development strategies to pinpoint which titles will be used.