Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Weeding the Library Collection
I took the WebJunction Course on Weeding the Library Collection. It stated the reasons for weeding such as making the library look better. Even though there may be less books, the quality of the books is higher. Weeding the collection also gives you an opportunity to see what materials are in your collection and what may be lacking. In this regard, weeding is part of the acquisitions process, allowing you to see what subjects areas need to be strengthened. Some barriers to weeding are that it is time-consuming and patrons may see all of the discards and feel that the library is throwing money away. It is necessary to have a Weeding Policy especially detailing how gifts and donations are processed. Weeding is done using the CREW method which incorporates how old the book is, how often it has circulated in a certain number of years, and MUSTIE criteria (misleading, ugly, superceded, trivial, irrelevant, and expeditiously available elsewhere). I know we are supposed to change the "ie" to "y", but in the course it used mustie with the "ie". I enjoyed this course because I am weeding the YA section now and it gave me some good insight, especially about "unweedable gifts".
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Weeding definitely does make the library look better. The Morris Library has been in them midst of a weeding project for quite some time now and I have to see and it has brought to light the holes in our collection. Patrons have wondered where all the books have gone but we just have to explain to them that it will be better in the long run for them and us.
ReplyDeleteMary, I wound up taking this course, too, as it was interesting to me how caught up we can get with have inviolate materials that can't ever be weeded, or the things we keep "just in case". I'm a proponent of destroying the books by stripping the bindings and placing those in the trash, then recycling the printed pages. That way patrons don't fish 'em out of the trash!
ReplyDeleteHi Mary,
ReplyDeleteI took this course too. I too found this course very helpful. I agree with Sarah that once you weed a section it does create a huge hole in the collection. I think that in my library, given the amount of time I can devote to weeding, that I will try to concentrate on only one section and then update that section with as many new titles as possible before moving on to a new section.
CREW was a new concept for me. The CREW website from the Texas State Library seems like it will be a helpful tool.
ReplyDelete