Journal Weeding Project, April 2014

The Periodical shelves in the Abbotsford and Chilliwack campus libraries are very full and have a limited capacity to store additional periodical holdings. At the same time, there are demands for shelving from other collection group areas, such as the Teacher Education Program collection. A further rationale for withdrawing print periodicals is to create the potential for future repurposing of shelving space for student learning and study spaces.

Many libraries have undergone a reduction of print periodical holdings, based on an overlap with archival holdings in JSTOR. JSTOR is a stable, online journal platform that holds the full text content (PDF) of thousands of academic journals. The annual cost to participate is reasonable, and there is every expectation that UFV Library would continue a subscription indefinitely.

Print journal titles for possible discard were identified using the following methodology:

• The UFV Journals List and JSTOR Titles List were merged and sorted by ISSN. Overlaps were identified.
• All overlap titles were checked in the JSTOR What to Withdraw Decision-Support Tool.
• Journals were selected which met the following criteria:
  • Image-to-page ratio of below 5%
  • Held in at least two dark archives in a verified complete run
  • Held by the COPPUL SPAN (Shared Print Archive Network) project. These titles are being held for preservation in our regional university library consortium.
  • Very low or no print circulation in 2011, 2012, 2013
• For all actionable titles, possible volumes to withdraw were identified, based on coverage in JSTOR. To be conservative, an additional year was added to the moveable wall end date. For example, if JSTOR has 1995–2008, we identified keeping 2007-current.

Download list of titles identified for weeding

For comments or questions, contact Patti Wilson (Collections Librarian) or Kim Isaac (University Librarian.)