University of Baltimore Law Library Serials Procedure Manual: Chapter 11

Because of budget cuts, rising subscription costs, and the inevitable transition from print to electronic collections, libraries have had to make hard decisions concerning what titles to keep or cancel and in which format. The University of Baltimore Law Library is no exception, and these trends are affecting the operations in technical services in many ways.

This presentation will discuss the activities after the cancellation decision is made by the collection development officers. There are many workflow activities involved, which may include contacting vendors for cancellations, adjusting the bibliographic and holding records in the ILS and OCLC, relabeling or stamping items for discard and discarding them or moving items to storage.

The presenter will describe his law library’s cancellation workflow that has worked for his library and discuss the factors considered during the process. The goal of this presentation is to make library managers aware of what happens after the cancellation decision, which can be fairly complicated. The hope is that by sharing firsthand experiences with colleagues, the business process in canceling titles can be further enhanced.