Skip to main content

Annotated Bibliography: Weeding the fiction collection: or Should I dump Peyton Place?

By

Jacob, Merle (2001) Weeding the fiction collection: or Should I dump Peyton Place?, Reference & User Services Quarterly, 40(3), 234-239.

Choosing which books to weed can be difficult especially in the fiction section as there is no set guidelines or criteria. Merle Jacob, in a speech first given at an ALA conference, presents the challenges and steps most useful for weeding a fiction collection. This article provides a shorten version of the speech outline methods and reasoning for how to make the best choices for your library collection.

Summary

When choosing books for weeding in the fiction area the most important thing to know is your community. Who they are and what they want to read. Jacob suggests using circulation information and interlibrary loan requests. These two areas will tell how often an item is circulated and what patrons are requesting to read. Another important point is that a book sitting on a shelf is taking up valuable space that could be used for a more highly sought out title or eave ease of access to the shelf. If the shelves are too crowded, then patrons and staff have a harder time shelving and finding books. Jacob also suggests learning about book repair; can a book be repaired, or should it just be discarded? Know the difference.

The article is presented in format that is easy to read with headers for each section. The methods for choosing which books should be weeded and which books should be kept are adaptable to any group wishing to start a weeding project. Merle Jacob provides sound reasoning and gives examples of when people are reluctant to weeded books and how to counter those instincts. On a final note the whole process is changeable based in needs and space; Books that are kept once may be discarded later as needs change.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annotated Bibliography- Data Driven Deselection: Using a Decision Support Tool

By
Ehret Snyder, C. (2013, Dec 20). Data-driven deselection: multiple point data using a decision support tool in an academic library. Collection Management, 39 , 11-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2013.866607 Weeding is a time-consuming and sensitive task for librarians. It is necessary to make space for new material, keep information current and updated, and remove items in poor condition. Librarians have to determine what kind of data is necessary to review in order to justify removing an item from the library’s shelves. Tools exist to help librarians gather multiple points of data to make the process more efficient. The librarians at Olin Library, part of Rollins College in Florida, utilized such a tool (Sustainable Collections Services) to help them update their collection and present the findings in this paper. Summary: Librarians are short on time and weeding is one of the most time-consuming tasks they can take on. Criteria is necessary to make...
Post a Comment
Read more

Annotated Bibliography- Weeding E-Books

By
Waugh, M., Donlin, M., & Braunstein, S. (2015, Jan 14). Next-generation collection management: a case study of quality control and weeding e-books in an academic library. Collection Management, 40 (1), 17-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2014.965864 This paper presents a case study in e-book weeding from Louisiana State University. E-book collection management policies do not exist in over 95% of ARL (Association of Research Libraries) facilities and it is unlikely numbers would be much lower in any library. E-book collections need to be evaluated according to a thoughtfully created policy in order to keep an up to date, useful collection to serve patrons needs. By examining the difficulties and triumphs experienced by other libraries, staff can work to address deficiencies in their facilities.   A major problem will be interacting with vendors since they control collections. It will be important for individual libraries demand better self-service, s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Annotated Bibliography - Weeding With ADDIE: Developing Training for Deselection at an Academic Library

By
O’Neill, J. L. (2016). Weeding with ADDIE: Developing Training for Deselection at an Academic          Library. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 56(2), 108-115. doi:10.31229/osf.io/hym8b California State University Fullerton has been open since 1957. Up until 2014, there had not been a large-scale weeding completed of the materials in Pollak Library. Instructional Design Librarian J. Lindsay O’Neill turned to the design process known as ADDIE to develop a method to train librarians to undergo the task. Summary           Weeding is often a difficult task to perform. Not only is it done less often than most tasks library staff perform, it often comes with the guilt of removing material, the fear of making the wrong call, and the concern from stakeholders about ‘throwing books away.’ Making the task even more difficult is the lack of formal training for librarians on weeding in the field....
Post a Comment
Read more