Creating Core Title Lists for Print Subscription Retention and Storage/Weeding

Loma Linda University (LLU) is a small, health sciences-oriented university with a growing electronic resource collection with 5,674 e-books, over 70 databases, and more than 12,000 e-journals. In 2007, they decided to use print usage statistics compiled over several years with a goal of making sound decisions about retaining or cancelling print subscriptions and determining which subscriptions to flip from print to online only. The core title lists they developed were used to help guide the library in making decisions about weeding, maintaining print access, migrating to online, and placing bound volumes into remote storage. This presentation outlined the process used at LLU to identify core titles and explains some of the rationale behind their decisions. Some of the advantages and disadvantages in undertaking such a project are identified and a review from the practical side of the project may give some insight to other libraries considering such an endeavor.