Dear colleague,
As I noted in all three open faculty meetings recently, the Libraries will begin the review process of the Dewey 900 (History and Geography) collection for storage. I am writing to request your assistance in this process.
In order to solve serious overcrowding problems, the Libraries began a program of off-site storage of lesser-used materials as early as the mid-1990s. Engineering collections were reviewed in 2004-2005 and a portion of that collection was shelved off-site. A review of the collections in Watson and Anschutz libraries was begun in 2005 to determine which books and journals should remain in central campus libraries and which could be transferred to the new Library Annex. The process involves selection of titles to remain in the circulating collections by library staff, and review of remaining titles by faculty to identify any titles appropriate to the circulating collection. Our librarians completed an initial review of the Dewey 500s (sciences), 600s (technology), and 800s (Literature) and full reviews of these collections have been completed by interested faculty from many departments. Recently, our subject specialists also completed the initial review of the Dewey 900s (History and Geography), excluding titles in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. About 30% of the titles classified in these Dewey ranges have been selected to remain in the circulating collections and have been reclassified into Library of Congress numbers.
On behalf of the Libraries, I invite all faculty members, but especially those in the departments most closely related to the subjects of the collections under review, to participate in the process by reviewing the Dewey 900s. Your expertise can assist us in several ways. Attached is an outline of the Library's review process and how faculty can participate. We hope to complete the faculty review of the Dewey 900s by December 15, 2007.
Our goal is to relieve overcrowding in a cost-effective way in Watson, Anschutz, and our other library buildings through the efficient use of the Library Annex (www.Lib.ku.edu/Annex/ ). We will attempt to accommodate as many of the recommendations for keeping materials in the open, browsable collections as possible.
PLEASE NOTE: No decisions about titles for the Library Annex are irrevocable. All title-level decisions can be changed. Books processed for transfer to the Library Annex will be retrieved and re-processed for the main-campus collections if they are used regularly, needed for class assignments or long-term research projects.
Thank you for your participation in this important project. If you have any questions, please contact Rich Ring (864-3425, richring@ku.edu) our primary selector; or Susanne Clement (864-8999, sclement@ku.edu), Head of Collection Development.
lorraine j. haricombe
Dean of Libraries
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Kansas
