While any book in bad physical shape needs deleting (and possibly
replacing), you would want to look at age more critically in the (for
example) 320's and 360's than 390's unless that area gets a lot of
curricular use.
Actually, you'd be looking at the quality of information (dated,
authoritativeness) and the quality of presentation ( reading level,
fonts, illustrations, charts, index, etc).
I tend to do general weeding sweeps of information books, looking for
the most egregious books in all the areas. I try to buy so I can take a
bunch of books on a specific curriculum area to a dept meeting ('Here
are 20 new books on Drug and Alcohol').
A couple of years ago, Doug Johnson pointed out that good weeding not
only improves library use, but the usually inevitable empty shelves also
point to the level of lack of adequate support. Parents, teachers,
administration notice empty shelves more than shelves full of empty books.
Johnson, Doug. "Weed." _Library Media Connection_. Aug 2003: 124
and also available through Ebsco Prof. Collection
--
Robert Eiffert, Librarian
Pacific MS
Vancouver, WA
pac.egreen.wednet.edu/library
beiffert.net furl.net/members/reiffert bloglines.com/blog/reiffert
Anita Beaman wrote:
> I'm at a new school this year, and our 300s desperately need to be weeded due
>both to the age of the books and how full the shelves are. The average publication
>date from this section is 1981.
> I've begun weeding, and I'm facing a dilemma. If I keep to weeding guidelines
>and keep books published in the last 5 years, I'll have about 25 books left. If I
>broaden that to 10 years, I'll probably have about one shelving unit full, with
>room to spare (I currently have 8 very full units).
> The books have to go, but should I weed a few, replace, weed a few more, replace,
>and thus keep many out-of-date books on the shelves for now and spread the process
>out over a few years? Or, should I make a clean sweep of it, get rid of the
>out-of-date stuff, and replace as I can? This would leave a lot of glaringly
>empty shelves and a very full dumpster, but I'm rearranging at the end of the
>year, so I should be able to make the empty spots less "obvious."
> What have some of you done in similar situations?
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