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Establishing a Heritage Collection
 
Janet Tapper, MLS
W. A. Budden Library
University of Western States

For the last few months, The W. A. Budden Library at University of Western States has been identifying key print and media materials for a Heritage Collection. “What is that?” you might ask. Briefly, it is a collection of seminal materials that have put forth important theories or research, have been authored by leaders in the field, or qualify by their sheer notoriety, but may no longer have current clinical or academic relevance. What qualifies them for a Heritage Collection is their status as primary or source materials that may still influence current practice and thinking. This is particularly of interest to healthcare students of a philosophical bent, such as those in chiropractic or naturopathy.

The University of Western States is the second oldest chiropractic-focused college in the United States. Subsequently, our library houses a comprehensive collection of chiropractic and medical materials that range from current clinical literature to historic first editions from the end of the 19th century. Last year, we noticed that our collection was a bit too comprehensive and needed serious culling.

However, we take our role in the preservation of chiropractic literature seriously and our collection development policy strictly requires that we retain all chiropractic materials indefinitely. We have long been aware of the tension between offering a current and clinically relevant collection for our students and faculty while maintaining a historically complete oeuvre. In addition, there is the keen student interest in the philosophical underpinnings of chiropractic that dictates we keep these materials available in the stacks for circulation. The special designation appeared to be a creative yet tidy way to resolve this conundrum.

We identified our three main purposes for this project:

  1. To identify seminal materials that may influence current practice but may not be clinically or academically relevant.
  2. To further standardize our criteria for weeding out nonchiropractic materials.
  3. To announce to our patrons that older materials on the shelf are purposeful: these Heritage Collection titles have historical or philosophical relevance which may be of interest to them as readers and future chiropractors.

Our first goal was to crisply define the criteria for items to be designated as part of the Heritage Collection. In doing so we considered the following:

  • Taking a building block approach to creating the library Heritage Collection.
    • Seminal health science knowledge will be forwarded from the oldest to the most recently published books.
  • Looking at the process and criteria as a reselection opportunity.
    • Would we buy this book now?
  • Considering the concept of “live” health science literature and “dead” health science literature.
    • The dead is not all ancient, the live is not all modern.
    • The item must have living value for the student.

Given these directives and a search of the literature (see bibliography), we developed the following criteria:

  1. Was the work published before 1993? (20 years—per collection development policy)
    1. Materials over 20 years old should be evaluated for inclusion in the Heritage Collection, selected for weeding, or scheduled for replacement.
    2. Materials published before 1920 should be given to the archivist for evaluation.
    3. First, materials must be evaluated for their historical and educational value (section 2). If they meet any of the historical and educational criteria, the copy of the materials in best condition should be included in the Heritage Collection. Additional copies may be weeded.
    4. Second, materials must be evaluated for their clinical value (section 3). If they are not historically or educationally significant, they may still be valuable to the collection for their clinical relevance.
  2. Does the work meet any of the following historical and educational criteria? (preservation) 
    1. Is the material by or about a historic health science theorist or theory?
    2. Is the author’s research and writing considered seminal to the discipline’s development?
    3. Is the material published by an important health science organization?
    4. Does the material document people, events, and ideas important to health science history?
    5. Is the material considered a primary source?
  3. Does the work meet any of the following clinical value criteria? (weeding)
    1. Does this material contain current health sciences information relevant to clinical practice? If not, and it does not meet the criteria for inclusion in the Heritage Collection, then weed all copies with the exception of chiropractic resources.
    2. Is this item heavily used? Check circulation statistics and if yes, keep.
      1. Is this material a duplicate copy? If yes, then keep the best copy.
      2. Is this material damaged? If yes, let the university librarian decide whether to keep current copy or search for new copy.
    3. Does this material contain exceptional graphics? If yes, then keep the best copy.
    4. Would the library buy this material again?

To date we have evaluated a fifth of our collection using these guidelines and identified 171 titles for weeding, 50 titles for replacement/new edition, and 107 for the Heritage Collection.

We are pleased with the following outcomes:

  • Our historical collection continues to circulate.
  • Shelf browsers can quickly identify the Heritage Collection materials by the new tag and call number.
  • The Heritage Collection project has given us an effective tool and incentive to weed thoroughly without concern that we are eliminating influential and important materials.

Of course, there are always unexpected consequences of any program or new process. Issues such as workflow and updating bibliographic records have presented minor problems that were quickly resolved. We also found that this project is really stretching our expertise on what qualifies as seminal or influential materials in all of complementary medicine, and identification is taking much longer than anticipated. We have taken this as an opportunity to reach out to faculty content experts to make final decisions; their enthusiasm for the Heritage Collection project is the bright side of this problem. Overall, this ongoing project has been motivating to our entire staff and is a genuine boon to revitalizing our collection and service to our patrons.

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Bibliography

  •  Gnudi, M. T. (1975). Building a medical history collection. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 63(1), 42-6.
  • Richards, D. T., & McClure, L. W. (1989). Selection for preservation: Considerations for the health sciences. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 77(3), 284-92.
  • Shisler, C. M. (2007). Evaluating your nursing collection: A quick way to preserve nursing history in a working collection. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 95(3), 278-83.
  • Tobia, R. C. (2002). Comprehensive weeding of an academic health sciences collection: The Briscoe Library experience. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 90(1), 94-8.
  • Welch, J. M., Hoffius, S. D., & Fox, E. B. (2011). Archives, accessibility, and advocacy: A case study of strategies for creating and maintaining relevance. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 99(1), 57-60.

 
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