[LM_NET] SEC: Help with HS Fiction Collection - Weeding "The Classics" - Long

[Paul Birkby <Paul_Birkby@PENFIELD.MONROE.EDU>]

I've inherited an aged fiction collection.  I based on the analysis I ran,
my guesstimate is that about half the collection hasn't gone out in the
last five years.  While need titles have been added through the years, but
there are many aged titles that make the collection less than ascetically
pleasing, hiding the new title.  I'm still trying figure out if there are
school-cultural reasons why fiction isn't used much.

I want to make the collection look more appealing by weeding the old
editions, tattled paperbacks, non-moving titles. There are a number of
authors who I've very loosely categorized into 4 categories.  (NONE of
these authors' books have gone out in the last 5 years.)

"Classics" - e.g.,Pearl Buck, Willa Cather, JF Cooper, Daniel Defoe,
Faulkner, Hardy, Edna Ferber, James Joyce, Sinclair Lewis, Steinbeck,
Eudora Welty, etc.

"Authors that the culturally literate should read" - James Agee, Lloyd
Alexander, James Baldwin, Pierre Boulle, Tony Hillerman, Ursala LaGuin,
Madeleine L'Engle, Carson McCullers, James Michener, Herman Wouk (am I
showing my age regarding the need to read these authors?);

"Oldie but goodie (?) YA," authors (many were the core of my YA lit course
XXXX years ago), but haven't circulated in years.  Is it merely because the
copies we have are old and unappealing or have they become dated and
uninteresting to today's YA reader? Authors like Joan Aiken, Alice Bach,
Ernesto Bethancourt, Robin Brancato, James Lincoln Collier, SE Hinton, ME
Kerr, the Mazurs, Richard Peck, Robert Newton Peck, Leonard Wibberley,
Lawrence Yep.

My question, and I do have one, knowing that the musty, dusty books are
never going out, when I weed them, does anyone have some advice on deciding
what I should replace with new copies, hoping that pretty new books will go
out and I don't have to replace (e.g., Is any high school student ever
going to read Saratoga Truck?)  I do use the typical collection development
tools, High School Catalog, Follet's Core HS Collections, etc.

Thanks for patiently slogging through my rambling and thanks in advance for
any advice,
Paul

***********************
Paul D. Birkby
Media Specialist
Penfield High School
25 High School Drive
Penfield, NY 14526

Paul_Birkby@penfield.monroe.edu

The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change,
the realist adjusts the sails. -William Arthur Ward, college administrator,
writer (1921-1994)

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