We are very interested in helping all our members (and other library people!) get the training they need to be ready to serve their communities. Working in libraries means constant change, new services coming along all the time. Staying on top of it all is tough! Stay tuned here each week for some ideas you can use to dazzle your library with skills!

This week let’s look at weeding.

Yes, weeding can be scary. You never want to give people the idea that you are just randomly flinging books into the trash. Eeek! There is no easier way to ensure you lose funding, respect, and maybe your job.

Fortunately, none of that is necessary!

Let’s think about weeding as it should be: a necessary and useful tool to keep your collection tidy and up to date.

First: Have A Policy

I can’t stress this enough. Have a policy written down, and follow it. Hopefully you were able to work with a team to share ideas as you created that policy. (Members: call CMLE to chat about your policy!)

You can get policy ideas, and a lot of other information about weeding from the classic manual for libraries: CREW A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries.

Second: Decide on Your Criteria

You are not usually going to weed the entire library at once. Pick a section, or go to your assigned section, and look it over. Anything look horrid right away? Are there lots of holes?

Run a report to see how long books have been on the shelf without moving. (Your ILS should do this; give the vendor a call if you are not sure how to make that happen.) One thing you will find is that a bunch of books are missing. Yay! Well, it’s good news at least that those books can either just be deleted or reordered to keep sharing with people.

Then look at the standard stuff:

M = Misleading–factually inaccurate
U = Ugly–worn beyond mending or rebinding
 S =  Superceded–by a new edition of by a much better book on the subject
T = Trivial–of no discernible literary or scientific merit
I  =  Irrelevant to the needs and interests of the library’s community
E =  Elsewhere–the material is easily obtainable from another library

Third: Make It Happen

All of these books need to LEAVE YOUR LIBRARY!

Don’t worry if your shelves look too empty. (Well, okay, sure, worry; but that’s a different topic.) Junk on the shelves is still junk, and it’s not helping you serve your community.

FLING THIS STUFF IN THE TRASH AND NEVER LOOK BACK!

If getting rid of books is hard for you, call us and we will come over and help you. If your administration, or other stakeholders, are getting twitchy about “all that wasted money” call us and we will come over to talk about the value of weeding!

Fourth (and Final): Bask In Your Success!

Congratulations!!!

Now the lovely flowers, fruits, and veggies of your collection can bloom without all those pesky weeds dragging them down! (Okay, that got a little tangled, but you see where I’m going with it.)

A few things should happen now:

• you feel professional pride
• your collection looks better to visitors
• your circ numbers go up because books are actually on the shelves, and patrons can easily find the good stuff

At this point, you may want to start working on the other end of collection development: bringing in new stuff. It’s beyond us today, but be sure your collection is a living thing: it grows and changes to meet the evolving needs of the community.

Now go! Weed one thing that needs to go! Take a picture if you dare, and tell us all about it!!