Thanks to all who responded to my post a few weeks ago. I got a lot of good - and
sometimes very amusing posts. I also received a lot of requests for a HIT, so here
it is - in several parts.
Original Post:
Hi,
When I took this job a few years ago, I inherited a very old collection
- one that hadn't (ever) been weeded. The Collection Analysis I have
done through Follett, puts the age of my collection at 1978 (please,
don't laugh...).
I have requested money from the Board to revamp this collection. They
have come back to me with some questions, one of which is how does our
collection compare to other high school collections. They also want to
know what's wrong with a 30 year old collection.
I am preparing my answers for them, and I have included standard answers
on how/why collections should be kept current. What I'd like to know is:
What is the average age of your collections?
Who recommends the 5 to 10 year figure for keeping subjects/collections
current other than the ALA - are there any reputable educational
institutions that recommend this?
Any info you can provide me would be most appreciated.
Responses:
I don't work in the high school setting, but I would suggest that you get from
your Follett rep some statistics from him/her. Mine provides this kind of data
to my district and the other districts she serves.
Just a thought...
-------------
Some (but not many) thirty year old books are probably okay. Pride and
Predudice or Gone with the Wind haven't changed their text, but have very much
changed their appearance. Show them these type of books with "plain brown"
covers and nothing to indict the contents and entice the would be reader and
compare to the same title (borrowed from somewhere else) with a great cover
graphic and fly leaf description.
Get out the science books, space books, and read some out of date material.
Look what happened in the past year to Pluto.
Get out the geography and history books and point out the lack of information
from the past 30 (or whatever) years, the out of date maps (missing countries,
renamed countries).
Computer books go out of date quickly.
-----------------
Check the circulation record of books if you can. If a book hasn't been checked
out in the past 10 years it probably won't be in the next 10 years either. I
used 10 years as a cut off when I weeded my Middle/High School collection. The
only items I ended up putting back in were biographies because the Civics
teacher assigned biographies of presidents at the end of the year. Some of the
art/music books went to those teachers.
The only old books I retained were those by area authors - Marie Sandoz in our
case, and local history.
-----------------
I would use Follet to help you out. They have a vested interest in helping you
receive money. Maybe they can compare like schools in your county/state etc to show
age of collection. Also, they may be able to cite studies etc. to help you plead
your case. Maybe you want to just concentrate on a few ranges of Dewey. Do your
science books talk about how we hope to live on the moon by 2000? What about your
books on computers? AIDS? US Military? etc. Our collection is about 15 years old.
One thing I learned though, was some of the books Follett though were very old,
really were not. Our district inputted collection info based on original copyright
of the book. No allowances were made for a copy we may have that was update years
later.
-----------------------
You think yours is crazy.....last week I ran a super summary on Alexandria
and the average age of mine is 2009! How can that be?
It's only 2006 and I have acutally been weeding many books (over 30) that
are as old as 1948 just this week!
--------------------
Errors that guided us thirty years ago should not be handed down to our
grandchildren. New materials should great a new generation.
----------------------------
For lots of good information you might try:
www.sunlink.ucf.edu
You could spend days looking at all the charts for Florida schools -and there are
reasons for updating the collection.
Good luck! I know I get upset when they say they need to tear down a school
because it is 40 years old - and I know of schools where the books inside are older
than that!!!
----------------------------
I don't know if this will help, but comparing a Titlewise analysis that I
did in Jan 2006 to one
I just did this month, we have been able to update our average age from
1985 to 1989.
That may still seem old, but our collection includes many older
anthologies, etc. particularly
in the 800's, which are still of value to our school community.
I also use Follett's guidelines as to specific "age" recommendations for
our tech and social sciences section, but, again, make decisions based on
our local needs.
P. S. When I started using Titlewise, I believe our "age" was in the
1970's, as well, so we've come
a long way.
Hope this helps.
---------------------------
My average collection age is 1994 and I am in a middle school. I can't give any
recommendations on institutions that you can quote. However, when I present to
students I always speak to why books are important to use in research. They are on
their level, they are written by experts and fact checked by the publishing co.and
the additional level of review is that they are chosen by the library staff.
------------------------------------------
WOW, you are right up there with me, my average age (4 yrs. ago) was 1968. (Now
who's laughing!) Through parent donations, book fair and some federal funds I have
managed to bring the collection into the late 80's. Still to old, but small
steps...
One thing I did was check with my state Dept. of Education (look under Library
Media or it might even be buried in the Technology section)for suggestions or
regulations on how many books per student one should have, how many magazines
should one have, how much money per student per year should be spent to update a
collection and finally what is the acceptable age of a non-archival
collection.
If any of your curriculum has changed in the past years surly your collection needs
to be brought in line with that change. One of the lines that worked for me was to
state that in certain fields, science, astronomy, world wars, HOW we view these
categories now has changed significantly in the past 30 years.
Good Luck, I always think this is a fun fight to have with administrators. But it
will create a mountain of work for you, be prepared!
---------------------------------
Aaaauuuurrrgh! Nothing's wrong with a 30 year old collection if you don't
mind it sitting on the shelf, unused, and full of misinformation. The
collection I inherited three years ago was similar to yours. Mine was a
little more current -- average age was 1981. Even so, that meant there were
plenty of books that said things like, "Someday when Nelson Mandela gets out
of prison..." and speculated on the long and happy life that Princess Diana
would be living with the Prince of Wales. Show a few examples like that to
your Board for shock value. (I also gave my principal a book to show that
had the Periodic Table with blank spaces where they knew there would be
elements, but they weren't filled in because they hadn't been discovered
yet!)
------------------------
Circulation statistics my first year were 1000 books circulated in a year -
for 900 students.
With the help of a very supportive principal and School Council, we have
brought our average copyright age forward to 1990. Last year, 6000 books
were circulated. Both teachers and students are finding books they want to
use and books that have accurate information.
I hope you have success. As far as I'm concerned, someone who could even
ask, "What's wrong with a 30-year old collection?" shouldn't be on a School
Board!
You should also pull some of your worse books to show them.
-------------------------------------
Well, in my district we go by the CREW method of weeding and the ALA
guidelines. For fiction books and most early readers, age does not
matter because there are so many classic fiction stories. For these two
categories, the appearance and the wear and tear on the book matter more
than the age. Old, dirty, crummy looking books are just not appealing
and they don't get checked out. Now, with non-fiction books, especially
in the science and social studies section, age definitely matters. You
can't have dated or incorrect information. Books that are 30 years old
in these sections need to go!
Anyway, that's the short and sweet method. Are you familiar with the
sunlink website? I've forgotten the URL but google sunlink weeding and
you should find it. It's a great guideline for weeding a section every
month. That way we you stay on top of it.
---------------------------------------
I talked to the other editors of the Standard Catalog Series at H. W. Wilson and we
all agreed that we looked closely at keeping books in the catalog that were older
than 5 years old, except for classics broadly defined. Since we try to have books
in the catalogs that are in print the 5 years takes care of a lot of our problems.
As I school librarian up to last year, I kept many books that were older, as long
as the information was still correct. I did always discard encyclopedias that were
older than 5 years old and did not allow teachers to have them for their
classrooms.
-------------------------
Seven years ago, I came to a library that was in the same condition. I didn't have
access to an analysis at the time, but it was probably the age of yours -- or
older. We finally had an analysis done through Sagebrush, but I had already been
working on the collection. I still cried the first time I saw, in actual black and
white, how horrible things still were.
The analysis helped focus my efforts into areas that are specifically age-critical.
For instance, I think you'd have a hard time saying that a book about WWII written
in the 70s was too told. However, a book about gay rights or abortion or gang
activity or scientific innovations would have changed a lot even int he last 10
years. I started in those areas. I also focused on the areas kids did their
research in and made sure those were time-appropriate sources. That kept me (and my
budget) busy for 5 years.
Maybe your board needs to see a smaller picture, rather than redoing the entire
collection at once.
Your local accreditation group (ours is Middle States, when I was in South
Carolina it was SACS) should have some guidelines/standards--I think that SACS
said 10 useful volumes per student. If they're outdated and inaccurate, they're
not useful. Pennsylvania state standards say that in a middle school we should
have 15/student minimum, 20/student for "standard" and 25/student for an
exemplary library. (Again, these should be useful volumes.)
-----------------------------------------------
Don't feel too badly about your collection age, when I came here three years
ago, my collection age was 1965. I've weeded ruthlessly and gotten it to
1990--but I was below the minimum when I started with 11 volumes per
student...and now it's down around 8.75 volumes per student. There are three
other middle schools in my district with comparable average ages, one has 11.3
volumes per student, the third has 24.5 volumes per student. How is that fair
and equitable?
Hopefully you'll get some other concrete guidelines--especially from within your
state. Have you looked at the state webpage to see what kind of guidelines are
there specific to your area--they'll be more meaningful to your board than
something from elsewhere.
Susan Speranza,
Library Media Specialist
Bellows Falls Union High School
Bellows Falls, VT 05101
(802) 463-3944 x 210
Castleriggpekes@adelphia.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/sub/
* LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home