Letting Go of Legacy Services, edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong

I just reviewed Letting Go of Legacy Services: Library Case Studies, edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong. My review's going to be published in the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship v.27, no. 3, so I won't repeat the review here. I will say that the book raises some interesting questions about "planned abandonment." Some of the case studies address the abandonment of services that are considered core by most libraries. For example, the University of Arizona has abandoned both print and electronic reserves. After more than a decade of evaluating both services, they found that print was used very little, but took up a lot of staff time. Electronic reserves were incorporated into the university's course management system.

I think this book has a lot to offer library managers who are trying to offer new services while maintaining traditional services. It's clear from these case studies that it's valuable to periodically review and evaluate services offered. Whether services are abandoned or simply modified, a thoughtful approach to what we do and why is always useful.

Letting Go of Legacy Services: Library Case Studies. Edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2014. 159 pages. ISBN 9780838912201.