Weed It! For an Attractive and Useful Collection 1 of 6 W eed I t! For an Attractive and Useful Collection: Prepared by Karen Klopfer, formerly WMRLS Regional Librarian, Berkshire Subregion Contents: W hy Do W e W eed? W hat H appened in San Francisco? H ow Do W e Get the Staff and Public on Our side? Are Some M aterials Sacred? W hat Do W e Do W ith W eeded M aterials? H ow To Convince Staff and the Public That W eeding I s Necessary Why Do We Weed? 1. It is a disservice to patrons to keep books that contain inaccurate or dated information. Weeding is a basic part of the collection development process. With rapidly changing information, it is especially to keep the collection current and reliable; getting rid of the old is just as important as acquiring the new. No library is large enough to keep everything . Most libraries face space 2. restraints and can't keep everything, so its important to keep the best things in the library. It makes it easier for people to find what they want. In 1901, Charles Cutter 3. from the Forbes Library in Northampton, said in a Library Journal article, “… an unused book is not even good. The library should be a practical thing to be used, not an ideal to be admired.” People don't have the time or patience to look for books on shelves crammed with outdated shabby books. The overflowing shelves, carts filled with books, and desks piled high with mending simply give an overall impression of chaos. 4. The way library materials look is important. Most busy library users want attractive, clean books that are in good condition. They don't want to handle or to give their children books that look grubby and unappealing. 5. It makes good economic sense. You want to get the most for your money, so it is important to display and circulate only those items that people really want to read and view. As we can observe from most modern bookstores, a small but higher quality collection makes sense. Even for libraries that have very limited budgets, it doesn't work to have the library filled with unusable books---having a lot of books that people don't want isn't the answer to the demand for more books. This scenario also makes it difficult to present the case for an increase in funding when there are shelves full of old, worn books, and multiple copies http://www.wmrls.org/services/colldev/weed_it.html 9/20/2010 11:06 PM
Weed It! For an Attractive and Useful Collection 2 of 6 of things that aren't circulating. Remember, every item costs its library time and space. 6. Unweeded collections often contain unacceptable stereotypes. Sexist and racist materials are frequently found in collections that haven't been weeded. For instance, The First Book of Elections containing repeated references to “the best man in office” or “may the best man win” sends the very pervasive message that women don't belong in public office. Return to top of page What Happened in San Francisco? When the S.F.P.L moved into its new building, the administrators planned to dispose of cards from their catalog and auction off the cabinets. At this point, author Nicholson Baker intervened to preserve the card catalog. His action triggered an amazing series of events which ultimately resulted in the resignation of City Librarian Kenneth Dowlin. In the course of the controversy several issues emerged: Space allowances for technology gave critics ammunition for their charge that the book collection had to be compromised to make way for computers. There were a series of articles that leveled charges that the old library actually had more storage space for books than the new building. Internal procedures for storing and shelving books were criticized as being damaging to the books. Baker's description of the way books enter the sorting room (New Yorker, October 14, 1996): “”… a motorized conveyor belt pulls the books down a chute one at a time; when they jam, they get hurt. It's as if you sent your clothes down to the luggage handlers in the airport without putting them in a suitcase. Hundreds of books have been torn and broken this way. “ He describes the sorting room and shelves this way: “But because the plan depended on the creation of a new, lower paid class of employee called a “shelver,” which the union has opposed (and because there is no money at the moment anyway) books can take more than a month to get back where they belong… ..Hard-pressed book handlers until recently took the books that poured off the conveyer belt and flung them, as if they were dealing cards, into one of several huge mounds on the floor”. The biggest part of the controversy however had to do with weeding. Baker charged that over 200,000 books were hastily weeded. He charged that many were old, hard to find, out of print, and valuable. He describes the weeding process in several colorful ways: A staff member describing the discard room and weeding room said ”The ongoing crime was just so apparent by then. The blood was seeping under the door” Thousands of books which had never been entered into the computer were classified as “Not on File” and stored in a separate room ; at one point librarians were asked to decided if the NOF's should be kept or deselected. The storage room came to be known as the Deselection Chamber. Return to top of page How Do We Get the Staff and Public on Our Side? Sit down with staff and perhaps trustees to explain the process. The most 1. important part of the weeding process may be the advance planning you do. Most people are initially drawn to work in or be involved in libraries because they love books . They are bound to have some emotional and intellectual blocks about throwing books away, and it is sometimes very difficult for people to understand why an item should be discarded. Examples of materials that http://www.wmrls.org/services/colldev/weed_it.html 9/20/2010 11:06 PM
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