One of the biggest collections projects in a UK university library, the Collections Development and Discovery (CD&D) strategic major project has now closed, having completed its aim of refreshing the printed book collection at the Hartley Library, and improving access and discoverability through the introduction of a consistent and standards-based Library of Congress (LC) classification schema.

The project began its delivery phase in 2024, and has since addressed issues for approximately 500,000 books, including consistent classification, logical sequencing, cleaning and preservation, and updates to the catalogue. This has resulted in:

• 189,000+ books being relocated to an off-site storage facility, and 65,000+ books being removed from the collection to be sold or recycled. This has helped to create much needed space to address issues with overstocked shelves, and will enable scope for further changes within the library
• Improvements being made to over 11,000 metadata records, making items easier to find when using Library Search
• Reclassification of over 5,000 Education books from Dewey Decimal System to Library of Congress, bringing in them in line with the rest of the collection
• The confirmation of over 16,000 item records as anomalies relating to non-existent items, enabling their removal from the system and improving the accuracy of our collections data

Now the project has closed, the Collections Development and Metadata & Discovery teams within the Hartley Library will be taking forward innovations made during CD&D and embedding them into business as usual.

The project team would like to thank colleagues who contributed to this work and have helped to enhance the student experience within the library.

Find out more about the project’s achievements here and find out more about some of the items discovered in books along the way in the April issue of Staff Matters.