Weeding? Don't Delete Items. Change Their Status Instead.

Have an item you want to get rid of? There are procedures in place for this very situation. 

NEVER delete an item that you want removed from the catalog.  If the item needs to be removed from the catalog change the status to 'wd' (withdrawn).  

Items with the status 'wd' are deleted from Horizon once a month by Systems.  OCLC is then notified that FCPL no longer owns that copy.  They in turn update their database.  It is important to keep Horizon and OCLC in sync with each other so that other libraries looking to borrower items will have the most up to date information of our collection. This is why it is important not to delete any items yourself. 

For more information about item statuses and their definitions click this link.

For more detailed information on this procedure click this link.

Proper use of Weeded, Withdrawn and Librarian Review Status

The following reviews the proper use of Weeded, Withdrawn and Librarian Review statuses in weeding our collections - as well as why you should never delete an item from Horizon.

In a nutshell –

• You can use Weeded or Librarian Review to items that need further review before a final decision is made whether to keep the item or not (i.e. last copies);
• Apply Withdrawn to items definitely being removed from the collection;
• Don’t ever, ever delete an item record from Horizon. See below for more detailed explanations.

You can use Weeded or Librarian Review status to any item that needs further review as to whether it should remain in the collection or not. Either status blocks holds being placed on the item. If the reviewer then decides to remove the item permanently, it should be changed to Withdrawn status. However, if the reviewer decides to keep the item, check it in. That will clear the Weeded or Librarian Review status and put it back into circulation.

Withdrawn status is assigned to items that are absolutely and positively being removed from the collection. Items flagged as Withdrawn are permanently deleted from Horizon at the first of every month by System staff. Once an item is in Withdrawn status, no new holds may be placed on it.

Do NOT delete an item yourself from Horizon – EVER.

If you are still asking yourself, "But why can’t I just delete the item record out of Horizon myself?" We are a member of OCLC which is a nonprofit organization and global cooperative that is used by over "60,000 libraries in 112 countries…to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials." It’s the service we use to fill all those ILL requests made by patrons – and other libraries use to find out if we have a book their patrons need. All of the items in our catalog are in the OCLC catalog so other libraries know what we own. We pay for these services; it’s not a free membership. If you delete a record yourself from Horizon, how does the OCLC catalog know we no longer have it? They don’t. However, when you put an item in Withdrawn status, System staff creates a list of all these Withdrawn items before they delete them every month. This list is sent to OCLC and our holdings are updated in their catalog.

rev. 1/2018