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Annual Library Book Stock Review 2023

The process and criteria

In a typical year, we might buy around 8,000 new print items. Shelves in many locations are too full to add new books, and retention of unused titles makes it both difficult to find specific books and to browse for titles most likely to be of interest.  

In 2019, we piloted a new approach to withdrawing final copies of low-use books from our libraries and Stores. We worked with our academic community to agree a systematic and standard approach to withdrawing material. We repeated the process in 2020 and 2022 and have been delighted with the level of engagement with the listings of items that we shared. To date, academic comments have allowed us to identify more than 5,300 items which, although low-use, remain important for teaching and research.

Criteria

For the 2022-23 review, we have concentrated on Central Store, Hallward Library's Oversize and X-Oversize sections, and Greenfield Medical Library (GML) Undercroft Store.

For Central Store, we have used a combination of library data and national tools to identify titles which match the following criteria: 

• Item held by the Library for more than 10 years
• Item not borrowed for 6 years 
• Item not on a reading list in the online reading list system 
• Item not previously flagged for retention 
• Item also available in 4-7 other Research Libraries UK (RLUK) libraries 

For Hallward Library's Oversize, Over.X and Over.XX sections, we have used a combination of library data and national tools to identify titles which match the following criteria: 

• Item held by the Library for more than 15 years and has 0-1 loans 
• Item not on a reading list in the online reading list system 
• Item not previously flagged for retention 
• Item also available in 7-10 other Research Libraries UK (RLUK) libraries

For GML Undercroft Store, we have used a combination of library data and national tools to identify titles which match the following criteria: 

• Item held by the Library for more than 10 years  
• Item not borrowed for 6 years
• Item not on a reading list in the online reading list system   
• Item not previously flagged for retention   
• Item also available 3+ other Research Libraries UK (RLUK) libraries

The resulting lists of eligible titles were available to colleagues in academic departments until the end of Wednesday 31 May. This 16 week consultation period was longer than usual in recognition of national industrial action.  

After this date we will review your comments and plan for the summer vacation when we will remove or move stock, update the catalogue and reorganise shelf space. 

If you have any questions about the process, please contact the Collections Team.

How to contribute

 

This consultation closed on 31 May.

Colleagues in academic departments are welcome to identify any titles you want us to keep.

1. Please review the listings from the Library or Store spreadsheets below.
2. If you need more information to inform your decision, copy and paste the item’s NUsearch record number into NUsearch to see the full record details. 
3. Select Yes from the drop-down in the Keep column for any titles that you consider are still relevant and therefore want us to retain.
4. Please add a brief note into the adjacent column explaining why you want it to be kept.

We welcome academic engagement with this process so that collaboratively we can make the right decisions about our collections.

Current listings which meet the criteria