Item Record Withdrawal: Policies

The Item Record Withdrawal procedures apply to YUL materials that have reached their shelving locations and have complete bibliographic records appropriate to their formats and locations. For procedures associated with materials that are not fully accessioned and will never be cataloged (e.g. gifts, exchanges, errors that need to be deleted, suppressed, discarded, etc. for various reasons), refer to Policies for Re-Use, Suppression, and Deletion of Orbis Records.

 

Except for discards due to damage or weeding and items that readers have reported irrevocably lost, item withdrawals are done 2 years from the date on which an item is marked missing or when an item is billed for replacement (a.k.a. "lost" in Voyager jargon).

 

Two years is sufficient to allow for follow up searching, generating lists of replacement candidates (via the Circulation Reports site), and/or for the unreturned book recovery procedures to be completed.  Item Record Withdrawal does not alter financial records associated with circulation transactions.

 

For Sterling, Cross Campus and the portion of the SML collection located at the Mudd Library and the LSF, staff in Access Services does the Item Record Withdrawal work.  In other library units, the unit head is responsible for designating the appropriate staff and ensuring that the Item Record Withdrawal procedures applicable to the unit's practices are followed.

 

It is not an option to do Item Record Withdrawal work independent of this document or the overall procedures specified on the Cataloging websites without the formal approval of the Chief Catalog Librarian and the Head of Access Services.  Refer any questions about Item Record Withdrawals to the Head of Access Services.

 

For further information about the overall withdrawal policy, please see the following websites: