Kristen, your question about weeding and ultimate size of collection is one that I have been struggling with myself. I've been doing a very serious weeding of the collection I inherited when I started here 3.5 years ago. We're talking hundreds of books a year in a collection that was probably 7-8 thousand to start. We reconfigured into a learning commons model this past summer, which included the removal of about 150 linear feet of shelving. (Wow, once I add it all up I'm thinking, sheesh, no wonder the shelves feel so crowded!)

While I'm not aware of any standards or actual books-per-student recommendations, even if they did exist I suspect they would need to be updated to reflect the increasing inclusion of non-print materials in our collections. (Funny thing, though - did anyone's budget ever increase to cover the cost of the new formats? I suspect not, thus they came out of "book budgets.") Ultimately we want adequate resources (print and non-print) to meet our students' and teachers' needs - but how to measure that subjectively is quite tricky.

Here's the other "aha!" that occurred to me in this process: Once we reduce our shelf space and change our configurations, we put ourselves in a steady state situation in terms of number of books. In other words, it becomes a case of "buy one, weed one." I no longer have the space to display books cover out, my shelves are way beyond the recommended 2/3 to 3/4 full, and shelving sometimes becomes an annoying game of Shift the Books.

This electronic message, including any attachments, contains information that may be confidential and is intended for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not an intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender by replying to this message and then delete all copies of it from your computer system. Thank you.