The Ohio State University Libraries
Policies and Procedures
Technical Services

Document: Selecting Library Materials for Remote Storage

Date: January 31, 2003

Replaces: 9/12/02 draft

Prepared by: Carol Pitts Diedrichs, Assistant Director for Technical Services and Collections

Background

In 1988, the Library Council adopted a policy to guide the selection of material to be stored in the Book Depository. The Depository was designed to house lesser used books, journals, and other library materials. Decisions about material to be transferred require close cooperation between faculty in various disciplines and librarians responsible for those disciplines.

Environment

The Book Depository (opened in 1995) has the following advantages:
• Secure and preservation environment as a closed stack facility equipped with state-of-the-art temperature and humidity controls which will help significantly preserve and prolong the life of volumes that would otherwise be vulnerable to accelerated deterioration.

• Retrieval of volumes from the depository is frequent (3 times per day), with most items being made available as quickly as those now sent by campus mail to a borrower's campus address or held for pickup at an on-campus library. (See /stxweb/Schedule.htm.)

• Titles transferred to the depository which experience significant use can and are returned to a campus library quickly and effectively.

• If a scholar or student needs to consult a large number of volumes housed at the depository, arrangements can be made to do that consultation on site at the Depository. (See /stxweb/Schedule.htm.)

Selection principles

The Collections Advisory Council recommends the following criteria to guide the nature and growth of collections at the Depository:
1. The ongoing activity of identifying suitable materials for shelving in the Depository is part of a larger process of intelligently shaping the Libraries' many browsable, on-campus collections in a manner responsive to the needs of users across all disciplines.

2. Materials selected for the Depository are thoughtfully identified by collection managers representing all library collections, formats and media, in close consultation with faculty, staff, and students.

3. The application of selection criteria will appropriately vary across disciplines, departments, and collections, but every discipline and collection has appropriate candidate materials.

4. The Depository is devoted principally to shelving infrequently-used materials. The on-campus collections are designed for ready browseability and direct access to those portions of the libraries' collections that are, or are likely to be, most frequently consulted by users. That kind of access can best be sustained by relieving chronic overcrowding and relocating infrequently-used materials to the Depository.

5. The Depository accommodates those library materials that most benefit from the facility's optimal environmental and security conditions. In particular, collections from the 19th century warrant both preservation conditions and enhanced security against theft and mutilation. Like all other major research libraries, Ohio State owns countless imprints that are self-destructing in the open stacks due to the brittle and acidic paper on which they are printed. Finally, many of the archival resources in the Libraries' Special Collections can be secured and preserved in the Depository.

6. Only materials represented in OSCAR, the Ohio State Libraries' online public access catalog, will be shelved in the Depository. The Libraries' goal is to have a full level bibliographic record for each piece housed at the Depository. Faculty and students will not be able to browse the shelves in the Depository, but the catalog records in OSCAR will mitigate the loss of direct physical access. The powerful searching capabilities of OSCAR, including keyword searching, provide a variety of ways to identify relevant materials that are not possible by physically browsing the shelves.

7. Selection for the Depository will be done at levels of specificity appropriate to the materials being reviewed. Wherever appropriate and possible, selection of materials for the Depository will be done for groups of materials (for example, partial journal backfiles, discontinued journal titles, infrequently used subsets of a given classification area). When appropriate, such selections may be done at the level of individual titles.

8. On-campus shelving capability will remain constant or decrease; therefore, selection of appropriate materials for the new facility will be an ongoing responsibility of collection managers. This effort will require continuing attention to the identification of appropriate materials for shelving in the Depository, both throughout existing collections and among new and recent acquisitions.

   [Note: Many of the principles above have been made available by the Yale University Library from their Library Shelving Facility documents. Our thanks to them for sharing their documents with us.]

Working guidelines

1. In general, last/single copies are not withdrawn. (See Guidelines for Withdrawal of Library Holdings.)

2. In general, the Libraries will retain no more than two copies of monographic and serial publications; however, the number of copies retained in a specific subject area is a matter for the professional judgement of the individual collection manager. There is no limit to the number of copies of any publication which the Libraries may acquire if a need exists.

3. Collection managers and staff acting on decisions to transfer to the Depository should take care not to transfer unnecessary multiple copies to the Depository. As a general rule, no more than two copies of an edition of a title should be retained.

4. When multiple copies exist and some are candidates for withdrawal, a condition check should be made of the items to be retained or discarded to ensure that the pieces in the most complete condition be retained.

5. Care should be taken when withdrawing material with bookplates. Every effort should be made to retain the copy which bears a bookplate.

6. Material in need of preservation treatment (detached or partial covers, loose or torn papers, brittle paper) should not be transferred to the Depository without review by the Collection Management Team or the Preservation department.

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