Purpose For most college and university libraries, deselection of monographs should be an essential component of collection development. Few of these libraries have unlimited space for book stack expansion. This research study aims to cover the reasons why this should be undertaken and how it can be accomplished in the humanities and social sciences. At the main campus of Adelphi University Libraries, a conservative approach was used to identify and carefully review monograph titles that were published more than 50 years ago, and, in most cases, this resulted in their deselection without significantly affecting the collection. For some of these titles, the author determined that they might be worth replacing with available e-books and the author did so. Design/methodology/approach A brief overview is provided to delineate why deselection is important, and how it can be accomplished. A literature review was prepared. It included a review of deselection at small-, medium- and large-sized college and university libraries. The pros and cons of print versus e-books for collection development were reviewed, including four case studies. The feasibility of replacing print reference titles with e-books was also covered. A review of the monograph weeding project at the Adelphi University Library in the humanities and social sciences is provided. Conclusions and a projection of next steps are also included. Findings An overwhelming majority of the monograph titles reviewed were deselected without adversely affecting the overall quality of the collection. A small number of available e-book editions were selected to replace some of these deselected titles. Research limitations/implications All of the titles deselected were published more than 50 years ago. All of these titles were in the social sciences and humanities. The deselection review was limited to philosophy, religion, history, political science, sociology, education and psychology. There were limitations on the amount of time available to review titles in most of these fields, and as a result, only a small percentage of the titles in our collection could be reviewed. Practical implications The library has very serious space constraints, which has made it difficult to provide the needed study space for members of the Adelphi University community. Some sections of the book collection are jam packed, with no room for expansion. Deselecting older less used titles and eliminating some sections of book shelves help address both of these problems. Replacing some of these print titles with e-books contributes as well. This deselection project has reduced the holdings of monograph print titles significantly. In the future, the author hopes to rely less on print titles and more on e-books for collection development. Social implications In most fields, college and university students would be better served for their research by more recently published titles. Older, less used titles, as well as those not used at all, should be deselected to make room for more useful and up-to-date titles. As more and more titles become readily available as e-books, the collections of print titles can be reduced. Being able to use e-books even when the library is closed is a great advantage. It should also be noted that these titles can be used by more than one user simultaneously. Originality/value In conducting the literature search, the author discovered that there were a large number of titles on deselecting print titles. There was also considerable research on e-book collection development. However, there were few that linked these two important topics. In this research article and case study, the author hopes to have made a significant contribution to linking them together.
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This article aims to explore the attitudes of academic reference librarians toward generalist and subject specialist reference service, and to present an examination of the ways that these librarians obtain training to handle a range of research queries that fall outside their areas of expertise. Design/methodology/approach -A literature search was conducted to explore the current best practices for ongoing professional training. A follow up survey was conducted among reference librarians to gain insights into their attitudes toward generalist and subject specialist reference activities, and their participation in, and attitudes toward, related professional education and training. Findings -The results suggest that the reference librarians who responded have a high comfort level for answering queries in a range of subject areas, and that while some librarians may defer to a readily available subject expert this is not a reflection of their confidence in their own ability to have assisted the patron. Practical implications -Based on the insights garnered from this survey, the authors did an additional review of the literature and incorporated the additional research for their conclusions and recommendations as to how reference librarians, regardless of whether they regard themselves as generalists or specialists, can best expand their knowledge of reference sources in additional fields and answer queries outside their areas of expertise. Originality/value -Other libraries and reference librarians can use the results of the paper to develop their own training/professional development programs and activities.
This article reviews the value of federal depository document titles, often underutilized as sources of research, and discusses reasons why many of them are worth cataloging. Several approaches to cataloging these titles to make them more readily accessible are profiled. The Adelphi University Library has devised a system, relying on Boolean logic and using an online public access catalog (OPAC), to choose which depository titles are worth cataloging because of their scholarly research value. This has resulted in the enrichment and expansion of the collection of readily available research titles and has contributed significantly to the library’s permanent collection development program.
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