Collection Development: Weeding Q&A

I'm calling this a Q&A, but really, I'm hoping YOU all have the "A" part.

Background: When I started at this library, the shelves were wall-to-wall everywhere in the children's department. So I started weeding. I love to weed, especially when it's not hard to pitch stuff, as in: "Oh look, this book last circulated when I was 8; dump it!" which was a common process for me in the first year or so. Now that I've been through all the collections for the "obvious" self-sitters, and weeded and replaced for condition (thank you RFID tagging process), I'm able to spend some time really looking at what we've got and what we don't.

Present: My latest target has been the 900s. As I was trying to do some ordering of country books, I found that a majority of the collection is more than 10 years old or going to be 10 within the next couple years. Then I kept going, and found the same was true with our state books, and most shockingly, a majority of the books about American Indians were published in 1991. (The American Indian books being so bad was on my radar, but at the time I was first weeding, I left them until I could assess which ones were actually still circulating).

Question: Okay, you were all wondering when I would actually get around to the question part, right? Here's my dilemma. Do you knowingly leave outdated books on the shelf to "at least have something," or is it better to just weed them on the basis that they might contain misleading information? I'm running into instances where the most recent book to replace a title available through our vendor is already more than 2 or 3 years ago, which I can't justify spending money on. I've made a big master list so now I will know at a glance which things need updating, but I don't know what to do with the old stuff in the meantime.

Advice? Thoughts? Amusing anecdotes?

CONVERSATION

9 comments :

  1. I know this stinks, right? My big problem comes with Canadian provinces (we have books from the late 90s). My thoughts are to pull it if it is totally out of date (like if you have a book on Hong Kong and it doesn't mention that it is part of China now). Make sure that you have databases to support those areas so you can still get the info. I am pretty strict with myself on the 10-year rule (with the exception of provinces b/c nothing else is out there).

    Also, what I do is have an Excel spreadsheet with series names across the top and countries/states/indians down the left side (each is a different worksheet). Then I go through my collection and put what year the titles that we carry were last published. I also highlight in different colors (Spring 2013, Fall 2013, etc.) when the next title is coming out so I am on top of replacing. While that doesn't totally help you now, it will in the future.

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  2. Hey, 90s is cutting edge! A lot of my nonfiction collection is still 80s...or OLDER. I am personally on the side of nothing is better than outdated, especially since we are members of a large consortium and 900s isn't a hot circulation section for us. However, I know there are a lot of people on the other side of the fence on that argument, including my director. Since she has to approve everything I weed and I don't feel justified in spending a huge chunk of my budget in the massive updates needed in this section, I'm just replacing a few books at a time. I did get rid of the book about Charles Lindbergh that was pre-kidnapping though, and the one that said man might someday walk on the moon, if technology got advanced enough.

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    1. Thanks, Jennifer. We share books with our county system, and ILL in MN seems to flow pretty efficiently (at least in the Cities), so that's a good point to make. Even if we don't have it, we can get it. Might not satisfy the last-minute folks, but so be it.

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  3. I advise taking outdated books out even if there is nothing to replace them at the moment. We look to our databases to fill in the gap. I like both Lisa's ideas on a spreadsheet to stay aware for replacements.

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    1. Hi Marge-- good point about databases. That'll be a good professional goal for me: remembering to utilize that information in reference situations!

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  4. At our staff development day, one of our branch managers explained it this way:

    A few years ago, the library paid a lot of money to have a big survey done to see what the public wanted, what they thought of us, and all that jazz. They found out two key things about collection development. The first, and more obvious, is that the nicer books you have, the more they circulate. Even if that means having a smaller collection of really up-to-date stuff that isn't gross looking, your circulation will still probably go up in the long run. The other, which makes sense but I had never thought of, was that people trust the library for the most part. For example, if they see a book about China on the shelf, they trust us and assume it's accurate and current. A lot of people (especially kids!) aren't great at assessing sources, so they depend on our collection development to hold their hands to a certain extent. So, if you leave, say, old travel guides on the shelf, you're betraying that trust.

    Keeping the trust thing in mind helps me when I'm weeding and might not have a replacement yet. Sure, a book about marketing careers from twenty years ago is SOMETHING to use in a report, but if it's not accurate information, how is that helpful to the kiddo?

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    1. That "trust" piece is exactly what I was hemming and hawing over. I get the sense that a lot of kids in our area are "on their own," when it comes to homework. Caregivers are bringing them to the library, but many are not equipped to discern what is "good" information.

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  5. Thanks for all your input everyone! I've got spreadsheets going, wish lists, books to be recatalogued (I'm moving the American Indian tribes to their regional areas instead of being lumped together in 970 as they are now), and have pulled everything more than 10 years old, even when it meant getting rid of every book we had for a particular country. I'm going to take some time to figure out which databases we have access to through our county will best meet patron needs while I build the collection up over the years. Carry on! :)

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    1. Excellent ideas. Another thing that moved circulation (at least as much as you can in the 900s) is that all of our Native American tribes are located at 970.004. Then the cutter is the name of the tribe. You want stuff that will make sense as most people don't get Dewey (it is like a foreign language or secret code to them).

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