Monday, Feb. 22
I would like to thank Billie DeShone for her recent letter to the Valley Vanguard editor. I commend her for her passion for books, knowledge and research; she undoubtedly has a bright future ahead of her as she earns her college degree. As a librarian, I share Billie’s love for books and research; preserving and sharing knowledge is and has been my life’s work.
Saginaw Valley State University’s mission to support student success includes a vibrant library that provides resources, services and space that foster student learning. While it is true that older books in the Zahnow collection, that have not been checked out in over 20 years, are being removed from the shelves, access to copies of these books remains through the Library’s Interlibrary Loan Services and MeL (the Michigan Electronic Library). Many of these books have been on a shelf unused for current students’ entire lives.
Through the Michigan Shared Print Initiative (Mi SPI), in 2012, a collaboration among state-funded universities, Michigan academic library holdings were compared for overlap of titles. The titles chosen for analysis showed little or no “check outs” dating as far back as 1997. An agreement was then made that two libraries would keep a copy of each title for future use. Over the past few years, we have been using this analysis as part of regular collection development done by Zahnow librarians. The upcoming library renovation has given us the opportunity to remove the books already identified for removal. Zahnow library users continue to have access to copies of the withdrawn books, as well as expanding access to additional titles. The Mi SPI Initiative and Interlibrary Loan Services makes it possible to transform Zahnow library to a flexible student research, study and collaboration place.
The books evaluated for withdrawal included older editions, multiple copies and donations over the years by retiring SVSU faculty and others.
Room for growth is planned in the Library renovation for newer print books that complement the growing online collection available through the Library’s catalog and online resources. Removing older, unused books allows the Zahnow Library collection to be rejuvenated and more accessible to SVSU students.
For books that are being removed, SVSU librarians are working with Better World Books (betterworldbooks.com), a company that collects books to educate those in third world countries. Books not fitting the criteria for Better World Books were discarded.
I welcome any questions or comments and encourage you to visit the Library’s homepage over the next several months to follow the renovation project (www.svsu.edu/library).
Anita Dey, Zahnow Library Director
adey @ svsu.edu
