Did We Scan That Book Twice?: Weeding the Texas Tech Dark Digital Archive

The Texas Tech University Libraries' digital collections began in 2004 with the intent to digitize as many books as possible in the name of open access. By the fall of 2013, that mission had been revised to focus on the preservation of materials unique to Texas Tech. We decided it was not in the institution’s best interest to devote resources to files in our digital dark archive that did not meet this mission. Using the HathiTrust catalog as our guide, we set out on an online trek to discover just how many digitized books being preserved on our servers were, in fact, distinct items not held elsewhere. Along the way, we tackled questions of to what do we provide access on our DSpace versus archiving on our servers and just how unique is "unique"? Weeding a digital resources library requires a different process of consideration than the weeding of a physical library. Further, we used this project to refine our digital archiving and preservation practices, the most important of which was the establishment of an archive change log.