Weeding in Public Libraries
Weeding is part of the lifecycle of a book in the library
Have you heard of weeding? Weeding is the term libraries use when they remove books from their collections, either from looking gross or being out of date or not checking out in a while. Sometimes you see news stories about community members getting upset at “books in the dumpster” and why would a library get rid of “perfectly good books”?
I recently wrote this up in a different form for a journalist from an online outlet, and thought I’d edit my thoughts and have it here for my readers and those who might be interested.
Since I’m in public libraries (and I’m currently at my 4th public library — gotta move out to move up), the overall view of what to have on our shelves is to ask “what does our public/community want?” We aim to provide accurate information that can be trusted and lean towards what our patrons are asking for and what’s of local interest. Some libraries have one person do all the ordering, or a department of people spreading out the job. You’ll absolutely run into some bias, but as professionals we utilize the ample amount of reviews, patron requests, and our own educated assessments and experience to add to our collections.
We want to give a variety of viewpoints so our patrons can make informed decisions…
