Rebecca Kaplan Selections and Acquisitions of Library Materials Professor Boone

The deselection process, also commonly known as weeding, is an essential aspect of the maintenance of any library's collection. It allows for the alleviation of shelving and storage, which is important, since space is a library is limited (Evans and Saponaro, 2012). This storage and space issue forces libraries to cull their collection and make determinations on what is vital to the library's function and what is appealing to its patrons. Opening up shelf and storage space allows for new materials to be added to the collection, keeping it up to date and relevant to the users' needs, as well as removing materials that are either no longer relevant or of interest. The collection's maintenance is highly dependent on public use, meaning that with a non-reference collection, circulation and currency of materials is very important to the topic of deselection (Evans and Saponaro, 2012). I am focusing on the CD collection at the Kent Free Library, specifically the genres of folk music and world music. I chose this particular section, since it had been recently weeded, so the librarian I spoke to still had her call number list from when she had worked on the project on hand. It was lucky timing, since the librarian said her coworkers and her had been using the papers for scrap paper. I saw the shelves after they had been weeded, so I knew that these shelves were cleaner and more streamlined than they had been just a short while ago. This made an analysis of whether or not the collection was too large for its space difficult to determine, but it did give me an idea of how the collection was supposed to look. The collection was housed in drawers, which would ultimately severely limit the size of the collection, meaning that weeding, in this circumstance, is particularly important. There were no places for the collection to expand into, since the collection had a specific location that had exact confines. My emphasis in this particular exercise was to create a collection that could easily fit into this storage space, while preserving so that the collection could grow easily. The

collection, as it exists now, looked well-maintained and appropriately-sized for its space, with some room for expansion. This is likely a result of its recent weeding. I would assum that before the weeding process had taken place, the drawers were either packed or close to being packed, possibly making it difficult for shelvers to put away CDs. The fact that the CD collection was confined to this particular storage method meant that weeding was necessary for a collection that could fit, as well as grow easily. I decided to weed the CDs based on the amount of times they had been circulated. The Kent Free Library weeds their CD collection on a five year rotation and I felt that was an appropriate amount of time to determine the usefulness of the collection to the patrons. I solely focused on the circulation of materials, rather than the subject of the material. I was very liberal with the lower amount of times than an object had to circulate within that time period. I had the minimum amount of times of circulation as four. Any CD that was circulated three times or less, in the five year period already created by the Kent Free Library, should be pulled from the collection, due to lack of use. Since music is not prone to becoming out of date, in the same way that some other subjects might, such as medical or travel materials, keeping this particular collection current was not a priority, nor even an intention. Due to the subject of those particular materials, they need to be up-to-date, lest they are consulted for specific issues; in those instances, keeping outdated materials could be dangerous or useless for patrons. With music, there is no pressing need to only keep materials that follow the current trends, so the subject matter and timeliness are not problems or barriers for the patrons. I also felt that only looking at the number of circulations was an appropriate method because the CDs need to be taken out of the library in order for the patron to access the information on them. Unlike books, CDs and DVDs need a certain technology or device that would allow the user to utilize them in the intended manner. This makes circulations a more valuable standard, which helps a selector to determine what is useful and valuable within the collection.

Were I actually to be weeding these CDs, I would also take the condition of the CD into account, as well. I was unable to actually see the condition of the CDs, due to the anti-theft locks that the CD cases had. Unlike with books, CDs are largely unusable if they are in poor condition. A book can still be read if there are marks on the pages, but a CD is often rendered useless if there are scratches on its surface, meaning that it would be one of the major factors that I would consider. Evans and Saponaro emphasize that the physical condition of materials should come secondary to the amount of uses the material in question (Evans and Saponaro, 2012). In this particular case, I would place physical condition at an equal position as circulation numbers, due to the nature of CDs being dependent on their physical condition. Using a specific number of circulations meant that many of the religiously-oriented folk music would be pulled under my plan. Unfortunately, this greatly affected the Jewish folk music. In the world music genre, one Yiddish language CD, the Great Cantors, had been taken out once in the past five years. A significant portion of the Jewish folk music had not been circulated at all. Despite the cultural value of having multiple types of religious music, I found it difficult to justify keeping a significant portion of the collection that did not circulate at all, especially considering the unique space concerns that I had with the Kent Free Library's shelving method. I found one specifically Christian CD that I would have pulled under my method, Traditional Christmas Favorites, which had only circulated twice during the five year period. In the case of the large selection of Jewish materials that I would pull, I would suggest donating them to a local Jewish organization, such as a synagogue or the Cohn Jewish Student Center, at Kent State University. This would allow the materials to be easily accessible to people who would be most interested or culturally invested in this particular collection of CDs. I tried to find information on whether there was a significant Jewish community in Kent, but the only information I found suggested that the Jewish population was extremely small (Religion in Kent, 2013). I feel that moving this particular collection to a location like the Cohn Jewish Student Center could allow students, who

probably do not have a local library card, since most of their needs would be covered by the Kent State University Library, to access these CDs. The rest of the collection was mostly just various world music CDs that did not circulate well. In two instances, there were doubles of two different CDs. Africa Today! was one of these CDs with one circulating six times and the other circulating twice. I felt that pulling one of the CDs, while keeping the other was an appropriate response. African Drums was in a similar position: one CD circulated twice, while the other circulated four times. I would suggest pulling one and keeping the other. Examples of other CDs that I would pull include Lowlands, a Scottish world CD; The Faerie Isles, an Irish world CD; and Paddy Noonan's New Irish Dance Party, another Irish world CD. These all were circulated two, zero, and one times respectively in the five year period proscribed by Kent Free Library. I would also pull The Rumba, a Cuban world music CD; Gypsy Music of Constantinople, a Turkish world music CD; Diversions, a British world music CD; and Ballad of America, a folk music CD by Matthew Sabatell. All of these CDs were circulated less than four times in the previously mentioned five year period. In all, I would have pulled sixty-one CDs of one hundred and seventy-four total CDs of the particular collection that I tackled. Of that sixty-one, forty-three were either Jewish folk music or Yiddish world music. This overall number means that I would have reduced the collection by almost a third, which I felt was an appropriate amount to reduce the collection by. With the considerations that need to be taken with physical condition, this could mean an even larger amount of materials would be pulled from the collection. For the material that was unrelated to the Jewish or Yiddish CDs, I would sell these CDs. If these the CDs were pulled because of their physical condition, I would replace them, according to their popularity within the collection. These damaged CDs would discarded, since they were essentially useless by the very nature of their damage. I felt that for my particular collection, the important factors in the deselection process were

physical condition and patron use. Because of the way CDs are used, these two aspects were at a premium. It is very unlikely for a CD to be used in the library, itself, so it was not necessary to contemplate whether they were being used, but not circulated. Physical condition was also more important in this circumstance than for books, since the ability to access the information on a CD is completely dependent of the physical condition of the CD. Overall, the deselection process is dependent on a multitude of factors and cannot be de-emphasized in importance.