Better together: Assessing a leisure reading collection for an academic and public library partnership

Abstract

UBC's Okanagan Library developed a leisure reading collection in 2006 to promote and encourage reading for pleasure on campus, an initiative now seen to be taking place in many post-secondary institutions. Over 12 years almost 800 titles were added to the collection. While this collection was used consistently by students, staff, and faculty, a new initiative prompted a re-evaluation of its purpose and future. In 2017, a partnership was developed with the Okanagan Regional Library to convert one of the Library's meeting rooms into a mini-location for the public library. This space would intentionally maintain a small collection of leisure reading titles, while also allowing public library patrons to pick up holds and return their books. As a result, the leisure reading collection needed to be reviewed for duplication with the new initiative and the applicability of keeping some content for research and teaching. This column will explore how the core weeding criteria were drafted for this collection, how they were used to make final decisions on retention for each item (even when they did not meet the formal criteria), and how the Library is moving forward with the new collaborative leisure reading initiative in an academic space.