LM_NET 08/24/94: No Subject

[Gideon Mizell <T400253@UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU>]

First of all -  Thanks for all the responses.  I have been
treated to a marvelous seminar on collection development.

As it turns out, I was worried for nothing.  I had a long talk
with my Principal today - and she is truly a Pal.  I showed her
the book about the plans for going to the Moon, written during the
Mercury flights.  I showed her the book published in 1947.  But the
topper was the book that had been checked by one of the current
teachers, when SHE was a student at the school.

Then the Principal showed me the SAX report.  SAX is a ten year
project to improve SC schools; it lamblasted the library.  The major
complaint was a lack of weeding of the collection!  I have been
cleared to "do what is necessary, in your professional opinion."

Taking the advice you all have shared with me,  I am breaking down the
collection and closely examining the books by curriculum and Dewey
category.   Only those items that pass the library's newly modified
collection development policy... ;> ...which includes precise criteria
for the weeding process, will be retained.

As for what to do with the books, I had already offered many of them
to the teachers before I got your warnings that they could come back
to haunt me - by being turned back into the library and by the
teachers using them, with all their inaccuracies, in their classroom
collections.

Foolish me.  I thought the teachers would cut them up and use the
pictures in collages and such.  I didn't figure on the ingrained
habits of these teachers and their "respect" for "the book".  When I
offhandedly told them to get all they wanted because the rest
were headed for the dumpster, I was given looks of absolute horror,
and the books were carried away by the armful.  I guess this dark side
of librarianship should be kept hidden from public view.

I have kept all your responses.  I am going to print them and put them
in with the weeding criteria.

You gave me a range of opinion, from a conservative "box and store
them in case of complaints" to "back up a dump truck to the door."
But the most succinct, and agreed on, reply was

"Less is More."  Lovely.

Now, who can tell what to do with eight unused film projectors and 5
movie screens?  :)

Thanks all,  Gideon