Weeding reference collection

As I weed Decatur reference collection I keep running in to the same issues over and over again:
- Print reference sources that are now available online (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Facts-on-File Yearbook): should we replace print with online. Benefits are obvious: we’ll gain space by weeding print volumes; we’ll gain remote access that will be beneficial for both on-ground and distance learning students. Maybe we’ll get students to actually use reference sources because online is always more attractive to them than print. The main drawback of course is the possibility of loosing funding to maintain subscription or publisher going out of business. And the main question is: Do we need to keep the print volumes even if we have full-text online access?
- Print reference sources that have FREE full-text available online. The obvious examples are Statistical Abstract of the United States, Economic Report of the president, Official Congressional Directory, etc. It would be really nice to have links to these free resources in our OPAC. We can all feel better about retaining only current year because it will be obvious for both us and students how to access historical data.
- With those multi-volume monsters like Congressional Quarterly Almanac or Who’s Who maybe we can come up with some agreement about what campus retain historical volumes, so the rest of us can retain current edition only without feeling guilty about it.
I don’t know if any of it makes any sense to anybody, but I would really like to know how other librarians feel about weeding their reference collections and what decisions they make.