To weed or not to weed? (at least in the public eye!)

I have been reading my classmates comments about the weeding process in school libraries.  Weeding has always been a challenge  for librarians – we are being asked to toss aside books that we might personally treasure, but ones that have outlived their usefulness.  There are many librarians out there who are packratish and don’t like to discard anything.  While it is admirable to want everything to have a purpose and a recycled life, keeping every book and reference text in a school library is not practical.  Unlike some public libraries, school libraries are not meant to be archives.  They are there to support the curriculum and student learning.  To that end, it is our job to keep our collections current and up-to-date.

Riedling supports this.  She states that ‘a systematic basis for weeding” must exist in any library.  (Riedling, 2005) Part of a librarian’s role is to determine “what is actually needed for effective reference work”.  Thus,  age, currency, frequency of use, and physical condition must all be considered.  More practically, when space is at a premium for reference materials (often limited to a few shelves in an elementary school library), the TL must be choosy.

The issue of 'dumping' weeded books is always a contentious one. While I believe that there has to be, out of necessity, some books tossed in the dumpster, here is an example of how weeded books can be offered to those who might realistically need and use them (keep in mind that shipping costs to overseas countries can be huge and this deters people from sending books to 'Third World countries." In our district, we recently went through a series of school reconfigurations and closures. All of the unused / not needed library books have been housed in a central location, and now we are going through a few weeks of priority viewing and claiming: TLs first, classroom teachers have next dibs, district staff, and then the viewing is opened up to community groups who might be looking for recycled reading material. This is one way to reuse these materials. TLs must also keep in mind that there are always 'public relation issues" regarding weeded materials, and sometimes we open ourselves up to much public scrutiny if weeded materials are viewed by others. We know what we are doing and can stand by our decisions, however, our professional decision-making is sometimes hard to explain to the general public.

TLs must also consider that we cannot possibly accept all 'donations' made to school libraries, no matter how kind. Outdated encyclopaedias and old National Geographics (donations I have been offered over and over!) simply take up too much space and are not used!

It is a great idea to offer weeded books to students - provided that you don't work in the type of school wherein the parents/staff don't support the weeding process - this can be a public relations nightmare if you put out books for the taking, and then have to face angry parents or teachers, weeded books in hand, who object to your "informed judgment" about what to weed. You just have to be able to 'read' your school climate well before you 'weed!'

One idea: I found that at one school I once taught at, that the weeded books were being grabbed up by students who were trying to be silly, and we going home with armloadfuls. They have no real intention of actually reading or using the books. The school was in a relatively stable socio-economic area, and most students had plenty of books at home. My library staff and I decided to charge a nominal fee ($0.10) per book to assign some sort of value to them, to prevent armloads. Of course, we never turned a child away who didn't have a dime and who truly wanted a book.