Hi All,



In answer to your questions, Kevin:



> (KO'D) Do you have knowledge of how this part of the policy was formulated? Particularly around how you consulted with academic staff involved in teaching or who created reading lists.



With regards to how the policy was formulated, it was the library's recommendation, to maintain currency in line with our Reading List Framework and the policy then went through several committee stages for approval. Here it was the University Senate, Library Committee which is comprised of a library rep from each department along with our deputy provost for learning and teaching and then a learning and teaching committee. I have to say, we will be enacting this for the first time this summer, so we will see how it's received. Certainly the first time, we won't do anything without giving some warning.



I share your bugbear of any workflow that involves a lot of (or any) emails. I'm working with our academic engagement team at the moment to establish the reasons academics say things like this. I have a hunch it's to do with particular chapters in old editions, to which my answer would always be digitisation and would still give us authority to weed all but one copy by our policy. Combining this message with continually pointing to a collections development policy agreed at several university committees means it protects us to have some authority making these decisions. There was one mad afternoon where I started to wonder whether we should try and get academics to re-bookmark things themselves once we buy new editions and let them know. I quickly re-considered.





> (KO'D) Anything that reduces or even completely eliminates superfluous and repeated edition checking throughout the year, when faster turnaround is required, would be welcome. I wonder how much time is spent/lost on new edition checks with no action required, just another aggregation of minor losses.



I'm glad to hear others like this approach. I think my biggest annoyance with collections is the delay between the eBook coming out 6 months, a year, 18 months after the print. Any process which allows us to buy print and e simultaneously while keeping in line with our policy to maintain currency is going to win with me. I think people have different opinions when it comes to print vs e, I'm certainly of the opinion that students appreciate both for different reasons and I really hate the idea of buying a new edition in print only and weeding an unlimited eBook just because it's a year old.



I actually did a bit of work last year on how many new editions our assistants actually found when checking every single entry every single time in Talis Reviews. The results were miniscule. It's come up again in some other big orders we're getting ready to send off. At the moment I'm looking at a list of 5000 titles bookmarked heavily on Reading Lists, I think I have a list of 96 titles from suppliers where there's a new edition available. Just the idea of clicking through checking 4900-odd reading list entries only to go 'yep, that's fine, next one' just makes my brain hurt a little, let along asking someone to do it.





> (KO'D) You could always use the FRBR vector in Primo as a starting point to create your own algorithm



This is extremely interesting, thank you for this! I have to say my method of FRBR-ising is extremely DIY and I do want to make it someone I can trust. I'll certainly be happy to share if I do crack something!



All the best,



David





David Steedman

Reading List and Digitisation Coordinator

Library Services

University of Roehampton | London | SW15 5SZ

[log in to unmask] | www.roehampton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8392 3352









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-----Original Message-----

From: Talis Aspire Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of O-Donovan,K

Sent: 06 March 2019 13:02

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Older editions on reading lists - retention, weeding, policies, liaison.



Afternoon,



Thanks for your very informative responses on this. David and Sheila I have a few queries / responses:



> (DS) Our Collections Development Policy gives us the ability to weed all superseded editions of a title.



Do you have knowledge of how this part of the policy was formulated? Particularly around how you consulted with academic staff involved in teaching or who created reading lists.



I think one of the main stumbling blocks to making the process as lean as possible, is the potential / likelihood of academic intervention, to say they don't want X or Y title weeded. I'm concerned about us, going forward with a regular edition weeding process, being tied up in knots with numerous emails back and forth between ourselves, the Academic Librarians, and the Academic Depts. Any workflow that involves email is a huge bugbear of mine and I want to avoid it at all costs.



> (SC) If an older edition is a core text, we will generally update the Aspire list to include the new edition (where the entire book is recommended reading)



We did that in my previous job but don't do it here. We tend to be extremely cautious about altering any teaching content at all without the explicit consent of the lead academic, which I think is fair enough, given that the academics have picked a text for their own pedagogical reasons etc. Have you ever had an instance where you weeded something, without consulting first, and it caused reputational damage to the library at a later point? I think the risk is low, given the length of some of our lists, but I'll be guided by what our Academic Liaison Manager advises.



> (SC) We are careful to check whether specific chapters have been included in the Aspire list, and if this is the case, will check to see whether the chapter is included in the new edition.



Do you mind me asking who does this part of the work, and an estimate of how much work it entails? Do you have a reading list, collection management, or academic liaison team that deal with the task? Are there handovers between multiple teams to weed items? And when do you do it? As part of some reading list checking / acquiring process, or is it at quieter times of the year?



> (DS) Purchasing new editions in a single bulk order once yearly based on maintaining currency on Reading Lists.



I really like this idea. I think we could definitely borrow (steal!) that approach and run with it, as we're already planning on doing bulk pre-ordering in the summer based on high demand usage stats, and then releasing the orders to our suppliers on August 1st once the Alma rollover has been completed. Wrapping the new editions check into that, and then ignoring it for six months, would make life a lot easier for the Library Assistants. Book ordering is an incredibly transactional process. Anything that reduces or even completely eliminates superfluous and repeated edition checking throughout the year, when faster turnaround is required, would be welcome. I wonder how much time is spent/lost on new edition checks with no action required, just another aggregation of minor losses.



> (DS) One of the biggest problems I find with updating editions on Reading Lists is we have nothing either in the data in Talis Aspire or in our library management system which groups together editions



You could always use the FRBR vector in Primo as a starting point to create your own algorithm, with the aim of holistically concatenating your data, and write some VBA to somehow logically stack it together in a standard desktop programme to analyse and work from...

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fknowledge.exlibrisgroup.com%2FPrimo%2FProduct_Documentation%2FTechnical_Guide%2F040FRBRization%2F010The_FRBR_Vector&data=02%7C01%7Cdavid.steedman%40ROEHAMPTON.AC.UK%7C9e7fc9253bf044939a2908d6a233f61a%7C5fe650635c3747fbb4cce42659e607ed%7C0%7C0%7C636874741391411056&sdata=kuqDTZOr4nUlerAg%2FDvttMkOdX695ny5xCznPXUy9fQ%3D&reserved=0

I might also "borrow" any solutions you come up with via this method if that's alright... do let me know how you get on with it :-)



Thanks again,



Kevin









Kevin O’Donovan

Library Acquisitions Manager

Content and Discovery Group

London School of Economics and Political Science

10 Portugal Street

London WC2A 2HD

Email: [log in to unmask]

Tel: +44(0)20 7852 3683







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