GEN: Opening a new middle school

[Janice Ziglin <janicez@EXECPC.COM>]

I could use some advice.  We have one middle school now at which I am
the media specialist but next year we are opening up a second.  I
assumed (and recommended) that I share any doubles of books that I
have in the collection but that the new school purchase the rest of
their collection new.  We have some older books, of course, but I
think I have done a good job of updating materials to make for a
current collection.  Now one of the school board members has suggested
splitting the collection in half so each school will have some old
books and each school can buy new books.

My reaction is that I would be losing a lot of good books which I
would have to repurchase at more than I paid for them.  We would also
be doing a tremendous amount of work to take these out of our
collection.  I'm not even sure we can export the records easily.  It
certainly doesn't make sense to give the new school the old books that
are never checked out.  Have any of you divided a collection like
this?  If so, what advice would you offer?  Or what else can I tell
the school board?

TIA.
Jan

Janice Ziglin
Library Media Specialist
Elm Grove, Wisconsin