Re: ELEM.Biographies & Weed of Month [LONG]

[MARION SNELL <marions@HOME.COM>]

Ken Umbach wrote:
>
> Did anyone else do a double-take at this:
>
> The writing has not changed, so it can only be that
> students have become less able to read since the 1950s.  Is it really a best
> practice to dumb down the collection this way?  How long can that go on
> before nothing is left?

Ken, Recently I broke down and weeded my fiction collection.  Well, my
tech did it just before she retired as a gift to me.  She asked me for
some general guidelines and I said:  If it hasn't checked out in 15
years, and it's NOT historical fiction, weed it.  We weeded over 2,000
titles and could have weeded a LOT more if I had included the HF.

My point:  Recently an 8th grade teacher gave an assignment to read a HF
book and there were three of us (the teacher, myself, and a college
student worker) giving assistance, we were all petting books like
Katherine by Anna Seton but the students were only interested in books
close to 100 pages.  They didn't really care about the topic just how
thick it was.  The days of big sprawling satisfying books are gone.  I
asked how many had seen "Braveheart" and there were many enthusiastic
hands raised but NO ONE checked out Porter's The Scottish Chiefs a book
I read at least 3 times in Jr. High.  Do I regret keeping those books
anyway?  No, the college worker is checking them out, and as long as I
have space I'll keep them for the odd child, but I have to make sure my
collection has plenty of short historical fiction (and other genres) for
the majority of my students.  I really don't think it is the ability to
read the longer books (it is for some but not all) it is the willingness
to devote the time.

--
Marion the Librarian
Montgomery Academy (6-8)
San Diego City Schools
marions@home.com

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