Happy almost Thanksgiving.
Thanks you so much to those who responded to my post. I got some good advice
and some great moral support to my question about judging older fiction.
Books are really like fashion and that's why publishers change the covers
when they reprint titles. Books are judged by what they look like as much as
we hate to think so. I did offer the really questionable ones to my classes
to read and review for me, but so far no takers. I'm going to try again and
maybe make a game out of it, but chances are I'll end up weeding them. Below
is my original post and my responses. Thanks again and Happy Thanksgiving.
Carla
POST:
I was weeding fiction this morning and realized I have a recurring dilemma.
I am weeding books from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that look really dated, and
are out of print, but could still be good reads. I have a book from ME Kerr
in from of me that no student is going to take off the shelf and the themes
might be dated. I checked the review, which was starred, but written in
1977. I think we need a database of newly reviewed older titles. Any
thoughts on how I can know if these books are still relevant without reading
all of them?
RESPONSES:
Funny you should bring this up. I just finished weeding fiction and had many
of the same thoughts you did (probably as I was holding the same M E Kerr
book). The bottom line is, no matter how good the book is, kids are not
going to read a book with cover art where the girls are wearing leg-warmers
and sporting Farrah Fawcett hair. I found many books that were brand-new,
never been checked out, that were purchased in 1978, 1985, 1994, etc. I put
them on a table at the front of the library with a "Free Books" sign on
them. A few are being picked up, but most of them will languish on the
table, just as they languished on the shelves.
No matter how good a read a book is, if kids don't find it appealing,
they're not going to read it. Weed 'em and move on. I guess it's inevitable
that we're going to make a lot of selection mistakes along the way. And even
the books that are "hot" right now may someday suffer from passe-itis. (My
Lemony Snicket books gather dust these days and I wonder if 7th and 8th
grade girls will be swooning over the Twilight series in a few years).
Keep weeding. Keep reminding yourself that you're not an archivist, keep
putting books out on tables as "freebies" and keep selecting new, starred,
or well-reviewed books. (I'm keeping a few of the M E Kerr books. Something
tells me they may make it back into semi-popularity at some point).
Do you perhaps have some avid student readers who would read and review one
or two of the titles for you?
If the clothes on the characters on the cover are dated, the kids will NOT
pick it up.
Also, if the pages are yellow or brown.
What really works, pull the books, give away to the students. It is amazing
what they will take if it is free. Place the rest in the district surplus
sale. If you have one of course.
Put newer things on the shelves.
What I would do is use my circulation records. If a book has a copyright
date prior to 1990 but hasn't checked out more than two times since 1990 I
would withdraw it, no matter how many awards or good reviews it has. Unless
you have an archival library, you should only have materials that are
currently needed and used. Even Newburys that haven't checked out aren't
really needed. Obviously no one has used Newbury as a criteria for a
reading assignment at your school for decades. It's hard to do, but you'll
love the way your shelves look without all that "dead wood" there! - - -
BD
Sometimes the personal reviews on Amazon are helpful with this.
I won't be much help....we had the same problem in our high school library.
The books also had yellowed pages and most hadn't been checked out in a
decade or more. I ended up weeding over 300 books from our fiction
collection. Maybe even more. Some titles I did replace, like Outsiders,
Call of the Wild, Pride and Prejudice and others. But we had a one time
grant of $5,000 (WOW!) and I made a huge purchase of contemporary YA. My
circulation has more than doubled this year. The statistics are staggering!
Carla Boyington
School Media Specialist
Goshen-Lempster Cooperative School
29 School Road
Lempster, NH 03605
(603) 863.1018 FAX (603) 863.2451
cboyington@gl.k12.nh.us
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