While this is my first official blog post on my weeding adventures, I'm going a bit backwards timeline-wise. This past week, I just finished up weeding the 900s section of our nonfiction. This was my last section to weed, after starting with fiction, then graphic novels, then biographies, then rest of non-fiction (will refer to as NF throughout this post from now on). This is not to say this is my first major collection weed. In my 7 years as a school librarian/media specialist, this will be my 3rd time. My first experience I did over 3 years at my first school starting my second year. Last year, (2nd year at my new site) I saw the opportunity of being closed/semi-open due to COVID in the space as the perfect time to weed the new-to-me collection. I'll do a separate post with visual documentation of that weed, but it was EXTENSIVE, Went from over 25 bays (columns of shelving) of nonfiction to about 16. I then moved EVERY BOOK in our collection around to a different zone and "genrefied" our fiction. Again, I'll create a separate post for that, but wanted to give some background knowledge for this recent weed. Where we started this yearEven though I weeded over a 1/3 of the NF section last year, I was too apprehensive to weed it further. I was still new to the space, the community, and seeing how students used the NF section. I wanted to give the initial weed a chance to work for a year before implementing more changes. Also, I'm a data person. I am a firm believer in combining qualitative and quantitative needs assessments to best implement change. For reference, I use Follett Titlewave's collection analysis for the pics below. I DO want to edit, I did not to a good job at deleting out all of the NF books from our system last year, so the numbers aren't fully accurate for this year, BUT since the previous weed was last year I found it still informative and relevant. Also, we DO have MANY more digital titles, but in the district I am at, titles are managed mostly at the district-level by our supervisors AND we have a partnership with our local public library collective that are not reflected as a part of our collection. As you can see, the average age of the NF over 10 years old.... which are pretty awful stats. In the last pic (if you squint) you can see the average age of the Technology 600s and History/Geography 900s are 2007. YIKES! While some sections and titles can stand to be older publications (as long as they are of quality and circ well), such as literature titles in the 800s, these specific sections should NOT be over 10 years old! Some go irrelevant after even 5 years! This can make collection development tricky with balancing budget with quality resources with actual demand. when to weed?I have written about creating/updating your collection development selection policies and procedures in a previous post, but here are some more resources for weeding: (Personal favorite AND written by friend Diana Rendina) How to Weed by the Numbers and Clean Up Your Collection - Knowledge Quest (aasl.org) Collection Maintenance and Weeding | Tools, Publications & Resources (ala.org) Ditch That Book: The Importance of Weeding in Libraries (bookriot.com) ALA | ALA Library Fact Sheet 15: Weeding Library Collections: A Selected Annotated Bibliography for Library Collection Evaluation Weeding my H.S. Library – Don't Shush Me! (dontyoushushme.com) .... actually... just go to Search Results for “weeding” – Don't Shush Me! (dontyoushushme.com) and search "weeding" and spend some reflecting time. links... no really... what did I do?Again, I'm a research-based person. I always want to provide the WHY before the WHAT. I pulled stats of our circulation from a district report system called "Shelf List" (the report name, not the system). Also important to note that no books were removed UNTIL I identified what was eligible for removal. I printed the shelf list out and highlighted with different colors and symbols, but you could do it digitally if you prefer. After digging through ALA, AASL, and other librarian bloggers experiences, I formulated my "plan of attack" (this is JUST FOR NF. I used different parameters for fiction):
I DO NOT count graphic novels in 741.5 as NF and had a different weeding criteria set. This DOES NOT account for the physical condition-weeding of books- those that are well circ or newer BUT we need to purchase new copies bc of their physical condition. Progess PicsNext steps
If you have questions, feel free to connect with me on Twitter @kharismabykat or TikTok @librarymrsdaniels <3
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