In May 2011, Upstate Medical University Health Sciences Library started a weeding project of its main book collection. Together with the help of our evening and weekend staff, student assistants and information resources team we were able to weed over 25,000 items in eleven months. This poster will describe the interdepartmental workflow, the low-tech communication style we employed and how we were able to successfully weed a collection without throwing away a single book.
This poster will also explain how we capitalized on an unexpected benefit of the weeding project. Since our collection development policy clearly states that items with faculty contributions are retained the identification of faculty authors in books, something that had long been an obstacle, became an opportunity. Learn how we identified Upstate authors and contributors; made them discoverable through our catalog; and what we are doing to continue these efforts.