Discard area or periodical discards cart, processing discarded items, updating the Discard Periodicals Google Sheet and the Student Worker Discard Statistics Google Sheet: 

Discard area or periodical discards cart:

Any items placed in the discard area in the Binding/Preservation room MULN 216 or MULN 216A or placed on the periodical discards cart located at the Content Services Assistant's work area, will be processed as discarded items, be counted for discard statistics, and recycled.

• If you notice that the issue doesn't have a call number label, receipt label, and/or routing slip label, please do NOT process the issue for discard. Go ahead and recycle it.
  • For example: The New York Times Book Review (It has no University of Arkansas Libraries call number labels and receipt labels on the issue)

Types of items that are placed in the discard area or on the periodical discards cart:

Issue with no labels: 

• If you notice that the issue doesn't have a call number label, receipt label, and/or routing slip label, please do NOT process the issue for discard. Go ahead and recycle it.
  • For example: The New York Times Book Review (It has no University of Arkansas Libraries call number labels and receipt labels on the issue)

Routed journals:

• In some cases, the library subscribes to certain titles that will only be routed to library staff and it will not circulate to library patrons and never will be added to the library collection.Instead, the routed journal will be placed in the discard area after it has completed its routing cycle.
  • Examples: The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New York Times Book Review (See routing copy check in record).

Limited retention titles:

• Limited retention titles are titles processed for library patron use but the library will retain current issues or latest editions. All past issues will be sent to the discard area.
  • Examples: The chronicle of philanthropy, The New York Times Book Review  (See PER copy check in record), TLS, the Times literary supplement, etc.

Superseded issues from the Reference Collection:

• When the Reference Department receives updated issues of certain Reference Collection titles, library personnel will place the superseded issues in the discard area.
  • Example: Mergent Dividend Record, Mergent bond record

Supplements to bound periodicals:

• If you notice a supplement to a bound periodical title in the discard area, please give the supplement back to the Binding personnel to review for discard.Binding personnel will discard supplements no longer needed while prepping bound periodical titles before sending them to the bindery.These types of supplements can be a variety of items, such as posters, charts, calendars, catalogs, or advertisements.
  • How can you tell if a title is bound or not? Look for "BIND TITLE" and "BIND INFO" fields in the check in record. The bind info field will have bindery information.
    • For example:
    • 
  • Examples of periodical titles that are bound but some of their supplements will be discarded at time of binding: Science and Children, Science scope, The Science Teacher

How to process items to be discarded in Sierra:

1. It is okay to let the discard area or periodical discards cart get very full of items because this is a low priority task.
2. When ready to process, sort items according to title and place the items in numerical issue order.
3. If you notice that the issue doesn't have a call number label, receipt label, and/or routing slip label, please do NOT process the issue for discard. Go ahead and recycle it.
4. Search for the journal title in Sierra and open the check-in record/card.
   • Make sure that you are supposed to be discarding these issues. Make sure this is not a bound title.
   • Make sure to match the items in hand to the boxes in the card. If you see a discrepancy, ask your supervisor about it before proceeding.
   • If everything matches up, proceed to change the box status to "removed" and suppress the boxes. Below you will find further instructions on how to do that.
     • For updating an individual box:
       • Double click on the box you want to update.
       • Change the box status to "R REMOVED".
       • Then down at the bottom of the box you will suppress the box for "Suppress From Public Display".
       • Click OK.
     • 
     • For Updating boxes as a group :
       • Click, drag, and highlight the boxes you want to update as a group.
       • Next, press the [CTRL] button and [U] button on your keyboard.
       • Change the box status to "R REMOVED".
       • Then down at the bottom of the box you will suppress the box by clicking the little box then choosing "Suppress From Public Display".
       • Click OK.
     • 
   • Before going to the check-in record, make sure to save the card.
   • Now, go to the check-in record and add a BIND INFO field (w) indicating which issues were discarded and include your date and initials.
     • Example: 
     • 
5. If it looks like the entire check in record can be deleted from Sierra, please notify your supervisor (student workers) or the Receiving Specialist to delete the check in record.
   1. (For student workers): Please hold off on discarding any issues until the Receiving Specialist can confirm and delete the check in record. She will notify you to either proceed or not proceed with recycling the issues. Below you will see an example of a check in record that can be deleted if you are going to be discarding all of 2017 and no other year is in the card. So, if you have 2017 and 2018 in the card and you are only going to discard 2017 issues, then we can't delete the entire check in record.
      • 

Updating the Periodical Discards Google Sheet & Student Worker Discard Statistics Google Sheet: 

Periodical Discards Google Sheet

• Go to the Periodical Discards Google Sheet.
  • If the title is not already listed In the Google Sheet, please add the title you just discarded in the title column. As you add new titles to the spreadsheet, make sure to put them in alphabetical order.
    • If the title is already listed in the column, please proceed and do not add another entry for the same title. We only list the title once. 
  • Add the date (the day when you discarded the title) in the date column. Also, please add your initials in parentheses next to the date.
  • Add the number of items that were discarded in the "#" column.

Student Worker Discard Statistics Google Sheet (for the Content Services Student Worker to complete only)

• Go to the Student Worker Discard Statistics Google Sheet.
• Count each item before recycling. You will count the supplements as well.
• Please keep up with your total number of discards each month and enter your statistics in the Google Sheet.
• Keep in mind that the discard statistics are kept on a fiscal year (YYYY/YYYY) basis.

You can recycle the materials after the discard information is entered in Sierra or the check in record is deleted by the Receiving Specialist and the counting of discards is done.