Weeding

=Weeding=

Weeding is the practice of removing materials from the media collection following predetermined criteria. According to FC Procedure IFA “all withdrawn materials will be sent to the warehouse for disposal.”

The media specialist, using the following criteria only as a guideline, should make a decision on each material based on knowledge of the school curriculum, teacher preferences, student interests, and other factors. It is recommended that weeding be done by a media specialist who has been at a school at least one school year. It will take at least this length of time to get to know the particular school’s curriculum and patron needs.

Weeding is one of the most difficult things for a media specialist to do, but statistics prove it increases circulation primarily because it increases the appeal of the collection. Another factor which makes weeding difficult is that many of the books that are weeded appear to be brand new because they generally have not circulated as much as other books in the collection. Many of the books that will remain after weeding will be “well-loved” books that are in need of repair or replacement.

Prior to weeding a section, find out which books have not circulated during a certain time period and make them more visible to students and staff to determine if they have not circulated because of underexposure. To do this, run a report on the section chosen by using the following criteria: 1. Call numbers (900-999, for example) 2. The past 5 years (August 1, 2003- August 1, 2008, for example) 3. 0 circulations

After choosing materials following the above criteria, display and promote them in a prominent place in the media center for an extended length of time - long enough for them to be exposed to most of the staff and students. Again, run a report determining which books in the section have had 0 circulations. This will be the final list to consider for weeding using the non-circulation criteria. Factors to consider when weeding: Has the material circulated in the past 5-10 years? Is the information and/or the appeal of the material out of date?

Keep these materials:
 * Classics
 * Award winners
 * Local history
 * Yearbooks and school publications
 * Titles on current reading lists
 * Out-of-print titles that may still be useful

The American Library Association, in cooperation with the Texas State Library, invented the acronym MUSTY as a guideline for weeding: M - Misleading U - Ugly S - Superseded T - Trivial Y - Your Collection

Weeding should be done systematically after a collection is 5 years old. Weeded materials should not be placed in classrooms. If materials are inappropriate for the media collection, they will also be inappropriate for classroom use. Please see the section on discards to determine the correct method of disposing of unwanted items.

It works best to tackle one section at a time when weeding. The first areas to consider might be the areas for the purchasing goals from the Annual Goals and Objectives (and also in those years appropriate the Critical Areas on the Collection Development Award). In an older school, weeding the oldest titles pushes the average collection date newer much more quickly than buying new titles. With that in mind use the TitleWise Aged Titles list for the area chosen to weed. Take the list in hand to the shelves when evaluating titles; it is always surprising to see how old some of those decent looking (unused!) titles are. When ordering replacement titles, focus on titles with newer copyright dates if possible. Since country geography and computer titles go out of date quickly, it makes good sense not to order a five-year-old title if something newer can be found!

Be sure to keep the media committee informed about why weeding is important and that you are doing it carefully and thoughtfully. There are many teachers and parents who have a hard time understanding why media centers and libraries would ever get rid of a book. With that in mind, parent volunteers should be used cautiously with weeding.

Keep in mind that it is also difficult for many media specialists to weed, especially books they have ordered, used and read in the past.

It is helpful and important to keep a log of materials weeded. Destiny will do this in a report; be sure that the "keep a log of weeded items" is checked on the page to delete materials. You may also want to keep a tally sheet of how many items for which section of the library. Again, the Destiny report can be very helpful for this task.