I just had to add to this - I am also in charge of textbook signout and one
of my tasks this spring has been to weed the bookroom of old and unused
textbooks. We recycle old books and on Monday we had stacks and stacks of
them. I called the custodian and showed him which carts were for recycling
and which were not. The two carts that were not were full of brand new
library books and some irreplaceable art books. You can probably see what's
coming. Well, I turned around and the next thing I know is that ALL the
books were gone! To paraphrase Bart Simpson, I was having the proverbial
cow. The custodian's first response was, 'well, they are in the recycling
bin now'. My slight 'freak out' at him as a result, convinced him that we
should do something about it. I had never gone dumpster diving before, but,
much to the amusement of all the teenagers standing around watching, I
climbed right in and dug through all the recycling until we had most of the
books back. Unfortunately some of the kids had already been there so those
books are, alas, gone forever. Thank goodness I noticed so quickly what had
happened because just as we were rolling the two carts away from the
recycling dumpster, the big truck came and emptied the recycling and drove
away!
Diane Gallagher-Hayashi
Teacher-librarian
Stelly's School
SD63 (Saanich)
Saanichton, B.C.
Canada, V8M 1S8
Diane_Hayashi@sd63.bc.ca
daichan@shaw.ca
Library Anecdote:
Patron: "I am looking for a globe of the earth."
Librarian: "We have a table-top model over here."
Patron: "No, that's not good enough. Don't you have a life-size?"
Librarian: (pause) "Yes, but it's in use right now."
From: Overdue Laughs (http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/libhumor.html)
-------Original Message-------
From: Shonda Brisco
Date: 05/31/06 17:55:51
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: [LM_NET] vent
It seems that the schools (that are more well-to-do) that I've been
associated with feel the need to also support programs / schools by sending
all of their outdated, weeded, obsolete, incorrect materials to foreign
countries....because, they need them, of course! There also seems to be a
need" to send worn, torn, dirty, and outdated fiction to the homeless
shelters because they'll use "anything they can get."
I have been extremely adamant about NOT allowing this to happen when I'm
weeding (if I can keep the withdrawn books within my sight). My thoughts
are that if these books are being withdrawn because they are not good enough
for our students to use for research OR if they are not used / read because
they are outdated, dirty, torn, or abused, then why send them to a homeless
shelter or to a foreign country's school?
While we have had great budgets in our schools, there seems to be this
misnomer that the "trash" that we would normally discard is okay for those
who are in need. This really burns me....I would much rather provide a "buy
one-get one free" book fair and ask that any "free titles" be provided as
NEW titles to these groups than to send the outdated, worn, worthless
materials that we feel is inferior for our student to others because they
need materials for instruction / reading.
With "friends" like this stocking libraries (or organizational book shelves)
we don't need politicians!
Just an opinion....
~Shonda
Shonda Brisco, MLIS
US / Technology Librarian
4200 Country Day Lane
Fort Worth Country Day School
Fort Worth, TX
817.732.7718 ext. 339
"We can't wait for somebody outside of ourselves to rescue us, because
nobody is coming to the rescue..."
~ Ross Todd, Professor
School of Communications, Information, and Library Studies, Rutgers
University
sbrisco@fwcds.org
http://www.fwcds.org/campus/libraries/default.asp
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