After a predetermined window of time, the Collections Strategies Team will gather recommendations from the above-referenced groups and aggregate the data. These recommendations will be considered as a whole to make a final determination about each item:
Items marked for retention will be processed by the Collections Strategies Team and relocated to the appropriate collection, if needed.
Reference collections in Dewey classification may be relocated to the LC Reference Collection, or may be moved into the general circulating collection to expand access.
Items marked for retention may be relocated to Special Collections, which will be determined in consultation with ASCC. The library will consider uniqueness and condition when making this determination. ASCC will hold the final decision-making authority for items entering their collections.
In limited circumstances, the library may determine that items marked for retention should be relocated to a different collection not listed above. Those decisions will be considered on a case-by-case basis and guided by the Collections Strategies team.
Items removed from the library collection during this process can be kept by faculty for their own collections. This may be beneficial in cases where a resource is pertinent to personal research but not to broader teaching needs. In cases where multiple faculty express an interest in a resource for personal collections, the library will consult with all interested faculty before making a final determination.
Note: the library will not accept future donations of materials previously deselected from the library’s collections. Please keep this in mind when requesting items for your personal collection.
This is the default option for deselection - items are offered to nonprofit bookstores or second-hand book dealers (e.g. Better World Books, Empty Shelves, etc.) where they are sold. We will prioritize organizations that support literacy initiatives and libraries through the sale or redistribution of deselected materials.
We will strategically prioritize donations to the Internet Archive in support of large-scale digitization and preservation efforts. IA will cover packaging and shipping costs for pre-screened donations. Contributions to IA will be carefully considered when determining the best process for the disposition of deselected materials.
In cases where items are deselected based largely on physical criteria (e.g. missing pages, damaged binding, mold/mildew, water damage/warping, etc.), recycling/disposal will be the preferred method.
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Mailing Address: Davidson College - E.H. Little Library, 209 Ridge Road, Box 5000, Davidson, NC 28035