SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
Deaccession Policy and Procedures
Rev. 05/29/03
I. Deaccession Policy
The purpose of this document is to outline the policies and procedures adopted by
the Southern Regional Library Facility for deaccessioning materials deposited by any of
the southern UC campuses. The SRLF OPERATING PRINCIPLES include the
following statement:
"Ownership of materials is retained by the depositing library...In order to
assure appropriate use of the Facility, it is expected that material deposited at the
SRLF is intended for permanent storage." (Section 2.0, Deposits)
When campuses send materials to SRLF, they do so with the intent of storing them
permanently. However, as time passes, campus librarians may become aware that
materials once considered low-use and therefore appropriate for storage have become
high-use materials necessary to support the curriculum or faculty research. In these
situations, all options for providing access to these materials should be considered,
including long-term renewable loans and, as a last resort, deaccessioning of the
materials from the SRLF.
In order for the SRLF to function effectively, materials should be deaccessioned
only in exceptional circumstances when long-term loans will not suffice. Because the
deaccessioning process is time-consuming and can result in the inefficient use of space
and staff time at the SRLF and the campus, the decision to deaccession should be
made carefully and selectively.
II. Deaccessioning Procedures
1. Each campus should develop local procedures for determining whether or not a
stored item shall be deaccessioned from the SRLF. The campus will inform the SRLF
of the name(s) and titles/positions of people authorized to approve deaccessioning
requests on that campus. Usually, these will be only the Collection Development
Officer and one or two designees.
2. If the decision is to permanently recall the item, the appropriate person on each
campus will:
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a) Complete a SRLF Deaccession Request form (see attached) or prepare a
memo directed to the SRLF Director, Claire Bellanti, which includes the following
information:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Title
Volume (or box) numbers
Barcode numbers
Priority of the request: "RUSH" or "NON-RUSH"
Campus library and contact person to whom the volumes are to be
returned
b) Send the form to the Director via mail, intercampus vehicle, or fax. DO NOT USE
SRLF PAGING PROCEDURES TO INITIATE A DEACCESSION REQUEST.
c) If the volumes had been paged back to the campus prior to making the
deaccession request, please return them along with the request so that the barcode
labels and other SRLF designations can be removed. DO NOT REMOVE THE
BARCODE LABELS AT THE CAMPUS.
3. At the SRLF, barcode labels and other SRLF designations will be removed from the
volume(s). Circulation records will be cleared and the holdings and item records will be
deleted from ORION. The UCLA cataloging centers will be notified to delete the
bibliographic record from ORION if there are no other holdings on campus. In the case
of UCLA deposits, SRLF holding records will be deleted and the cataloging centers will
be notified as needed to change the UCLA holdings record. In the case of other
southern campuses, the record is deleted from ORION but the Melvyl Catalog record is
unchanged. The volumes will then be returned to campus via courier service or by the
SRLF on a regularly scheduled deposit pickup.
4. Deaccessioned volumes must be recataloged or otherwise updated in the campus's
local system to reflect the change in location. Record changes in the local system are
forwarded to CDL so that the Melvyl holdings can be updated. Each campus will be
responsible for these updates.
5. Manuscript and archival collections are sometimes deposited that have been
processed and described very generally at the box level, and campuses may later wish
to retrieve them for more detailed processing at the folder level. During re-processing,
collections may be weeded and diminish somewhat in size, constituting a partial
deaccession. The SRLF prefers that a campus, when possible, reuse the box to
deposit new archival material. In reprocessing a collection, the appropriate person on
each campus will:
a) Complete a SRLF Deaccession Request form (see section 2. above), indicating
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on this form that the material to be deaccessioned is part of an archive or manuscript
collection.
b) At the SRLF, staff retrieves the requested collection and returns it to campus
along with a "Deaccession Checklist for Manuscript Collection Reprocessing".
c) Back on campus, library staff re-processes the collection, consolidating retained
materials into the same containers in which they were paged from SRLF. Frequently
this results in fewer occupied boxes for the collection.
d) Campus staff correct the label on the container to reflect new content information
if appropriate.
e) Campus staff revise the relevant catalog record(s) in the local system and Melvyl
to reflect the revised content and size of the collection.
f) Campus staff returns the collection and the completed "Deaccession Checklist for
Manuscript Collection Reprocessing" to SRLF, providing both former and revised MU
counts and box numbers.
g) SRLF staff edits the ORION record for the collection in order to update barcode
information and to record campus withdrawn statistics for the appropriate number of
MUs.
h) When the campus re-uses an archival container with SRLF barcode attached, the
new deposit must be accompanied by a note identifying it as such. This will ensure
that upon receipt at the SRLF, the container will processed as a new deposit and
NOT misidentified as a circulating item that merely needs to be discharged and reshelved.
i) If it is not practical to save the empty containers for later deposits, the campus
should return them to the SRLF with original barcodes intact.