Journal Weeding in Relation to Declining Faculty Member Publishing

Abstract

In light of financial and housing constraints a new exclusionary budgeting alliance for expensive, space-consuming specialty journals may be forced between academic sci-tech librarians and only those faculty whose publications activity and grantsmanship help support the library. In stringent circumstances the needs of productive scholars for new titles and shelf space must often be met by the business-like reassignment of the funds and space given over to scientists whose research publishing careers are over. Reliable, unobtrusive methods of determining when a scientist's apparent cessation of publications is likely to be permanent are discussed. The human circumstances surrounding an individual's termination of publishable research are discussed in conjunction with findings from the Sociology of Science. A highly professional, nonjudgmental style of informing the faculty member of intent to proceed and negotiating the cancellations is outlined.