Going Virtual:

weeding federal government documents in the electronic age -Jennifer L. Smith,

Belk Library at Elon University

Practical Issues of Weeding Collection Development Plan –

• Curriculum - is the item relevant to the curriculum of

Elon University?

• Format – electronic formats were preferred if there was

an online equivalent to the print document and the print

document was not useful to library users.

Federal Depository Library Program Legal Regulations –

• Any item superseded by a more current version or

duplicated in the library’s collection could be weeded

automatically (items in Elon University’s Law School

Library Collection counted as duplicates for Belk Library)

• Items five years old or newer: cannot be weeded unless

superseded or duplicated

• Items five years old or older: If superseded or duplicated

the document could be weeded automatically. If not it

could be weeded after being offered to the Federal

Regional Depository Library at UNC-Chapel Hill and

other libraries.

The Results Space –

• 12,300 items weeded

• 90% reduction in shelf space for paper government

documents

• 456 shelves cleared

• room created for approximately 11,400 books from the

regular collection with space for growth

Access –

• Approximately 500 tangible items that had not previously

been in the catalog were added. These were items such

as presidential documents, Smithsonian Institution

scientific research reports, and education documents.

Electronic Collection Increased-

• Cataloged electronic documents increased –

approximately 3,000 since cataloging electronic

documents began at Belk Library in 2007

• Purls were added to several existing document records

• Databases were added to the library website

The project ran from Spring 2010 to Summer 2011

Future Projects • microfiche weeding– following the same guidelines and

facilitated by the overlap in some areas with the Elon

University Law School Library collection

• continued increase in the cataloging of electronic federal

documents

Helpful Resources • FDLP Desktop, http://www.fdlp.gov/

• Documents Data Miner, http://govdoc.wichita.edu/ddm2

• FDSys, Federal Digital System, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

Why take on this project? • Space - there was a desperate need for more shelf

space

• Long Overdue – due to time and staffing issues the

library was not able to undertake a complete weeding

project in several years

• Access – as was common with depository libraries in

earlier years, Belk Library did not catalog all government

documents, making this information difficult for patrons to

locate.

• Electronic Age – the library needs to provide users with

the most up-to-date government information which is

increasingly online

Background Elon University is a private, liberal arts institution with

5,000 undergraduate and 600 graduate students. Belk

Library has approximately 300,000 volumes. The building

is 75,000 square feet in size with three floors and a

Learning Commons area that also houses Campus

Technology, the Tutoring Center, and the Writing Center.

The library has been a part of the Federal Depository

Library Program since 1971.

Jennifer L. Smith

Belk Library at Elon University,

jsmith41@elon.edu

To see this poster online go to:

www.slideshare.com/jsmith41

Introduction Elon University’s Belk Library developed a project to weed

and catalog its tangible federal government document

collection in an effort to transition to a more online collection

of government resources and better meet the information

needs of its library patrons in the electronic age.

Really?

http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/gpo9182/legal-requirements-guidance2011.pdf

Census Bureau pamphlet from 1985