by Ann Snowman

Last fall we implemented the new procedure for eliminating long overdue and long missing books from University Libraries’ catalog.  The previous summer was spent searching one last time for MISSING items, then any item not found and reclaimed through a simple discharge was marked WITHDRAWN, the same status that is applied to weeded materials.

In October 2014 all of the records for anything marked withdrawn before October 2013 were moved to the library policy ZREMOVED.  This is a shadowed status only visible to operators in Workflows, the staff interface to the catalog.  Items consigned to the ZREMOVED library will remain there for reference perpetually.
ZREMOVED now has a collection representing 445,397 copies of former holdings.  Any item appearing in ZREMOVED represents something we once owned but is now gone, either through purposeful deselection as in the case of the Elsevier volumes, or because it cannot be accounted for (MISSING), or it was loaned  but never returned (LOST).
A search of Director’s Station reveals that 81% of the ZREMOVED copies were published between 1950-1999.  Item Type BOOK represents the highest number of copies in ZREMOVED. The most plentiful copies in a call number range appear in the H (Social Sciences) classification.
As a result of implementing this procedure we ensure that a diligent search for missing items is conducted; and items no longer available to our users do not appear in the catalog, saving time and frustration; at the same time we retain an historical record of their disposal.
This process is part of an emerging comprehensive collection management program that will ensure that our tangible collections are accounted for and reliably represented in the CAT.  Deduplication of low use monographs will follow and these processes will be repeated each year.