University of Guelph Library
Effective: July 2006
Rationale
Items determined by library staff to be surplus to the needs of the library collection (as defined through the criteria set forth in the University of Guelph Library's Collections Relocation & Withdrawal Policy) will be withdrawn from the Library's collections.
The Policy
Methods of disposal used for items which are being withdrawn may include:
- Shipping at the most financially advantageous rate for waste treatment and disposal.
- Shipping to libraries in underdeveloped countries when specific needs are identifiable. This is only done when external funding is available to cover shipping costs and when library staff are willing to volunteer their own time for the necessary selection, sorting and packing.
Note: Normally, withdrawn material is not offered to members of the university or general public. When a specific subject area is weeded, the withdrawn materials may be offered to an academic department for them to distribute, but is not offered directly by the Library to specific individuals. The National Library's Canadian Book Exchange Centre (CBEC), which redistributed material to other Canadian libraries, closed in March 2008.
The decision to accept withdrawn materials or not will be made by the department chair or their delegate. If the department agrees to accept withdrawn materials, the items are stamped as Withdrawn from the Library and will not be accepted back by the library in the future. The materials will be boxed by subject in their entirety and sent to the appropriate department for distribution at the Department's discretion. If a department is unwilling or unable to take care of the entire process of receipt, distribution and disposal of materials which the library is withdrawing, then the library will dispose of the materials according to normal processes as described above. This disposal procedure will only be possible where the classification of the books can be clearly attributed to a single academic department, rather than to multiple disciplines.
Contact
University of Guelph Information Resources Committee, Scott Gillies (chair)