Weeding

Well, today I weeded books from the cooking section of the Ellettsville branch. I used a detailed circulation sheet showing me the statistics for all of the adult books in that section of the collection. That not only helped me determine what to buy but also what not to buy! Books that had never circulated were top priority for disposal, though some were too integral to the collection to let go, i.e. the only book on definitive French cooking. Unsightly, old, damaged books were also candidates for disposal, though if they had high circulation numbers I tried to find replacements to put on my 'wish list.' At first I felt like I was pulling a lot of books off the shelves to get rid of, but once I was finished I realized that I planned to weed about the same amount as I had planned to buy. Which is the way it should work out I guess.

Mickey (my supervisor) scanned the books I suggested we weed and there was only one that she thought we should keep: A cookbook for people who had just undergone weight loss surgery. She made a good point: There are no other books like that in the collection. So we decided to keep that one. There were a few others that might have remained but when creating my list of books to order I kept in mind which ones would be replacing outdated or unpopular volumes. For example, we saw no need to keep a cheese book from the 1970s that had almost never circulated in all the years the library has had it! Out the door! But I ordered a book that seemed to be a better replacement.

Even though I knew the numbers didn't lie, it was really hard to pull a shiny, mylar'ed book off the shelf and know that I was sealing its fate. The books that looked brand-new but had hardly ever circulated were the hardest. I kept thinking to myself, "Should we just wait one more year to see if someone wants it...?" Some I had put on my list to weed I didn't find on the shelves, which leads me to believe they are checked out. So at least they were saved from their fate! It's a tough decision to make when deciding whether or not to toss a perfectly good book. But if no one's reading it and we could replace it for one that patrons will read/use, what are we waiting for?