Interview: New England Libraries: Sylvie

New England Libraries

Interview questions for weeding: Interview with Sylvie

1. Who is responsible for weeding the collection and how is the collection divided?

 Adult collection – Adult Services/reference librarian

YA collection – YA Librarian

Children’s collection – Children’s librarian

Video games – YA Librarian

These are the major divisions. There are a few smaller collections that certain staff members who have an interest or expertise in that help the development and weeding.

Follow up: Is there anyone who assists in bring books to your attention for consideration?

Anyone on staff can recommend a book or item for weeding based on condition, content or other reasons.

2. Is there a set schedule for weeding?

We have just developed a weeding schedule and have started implementation. The entire collection is covered over a 12-month period.

3. Do you have a method that you use, like CREW?

We have adapted CREW to our collection. So, this is loosely the method we use.

4. What is your criteria for weeding?

In general:

Non-fiction that has not circulated in 5 years. We also review content to be sure it is up to date (ie: legal, medical, travelogues etc)

Fiction that has not circulated in 3 years.

Exceptions are made for local interest titles, local authors and special collections.

5. What do you do with books after they have been weeded?

We just finished a very large weeding project. In this case it is impossible to re-home all books. The majority were recycled. The Children’s picture books and easy readers were donated to a new Charter School that opened this fall. Some specialty titles we found homes for. Going forward we hope to work with a book consigner, but anticipate the many books will be recycled.  Our duplicates of bestsellers are donated to our Friends group for their book sale after circulation numbers drop.

6. Does your current method work well?  Would you like to implement another format?

This is an ongoing work in process and we are always looking for ways to improve. Also depending on our building’s needs we may have to adapt. ( ie: restructuring of floor space, need to make room for a new collection etc.)

7. Is there any flexibility in method or schedule?

We are trying to stick to the schedule that has been setup, but the method is very flexible dependent upon the library’s current needs.

8. Do you use any resources when choosing which items to weed like a website or program?

We may double check lists of award winners etc.

9. How are your periodicals handled for weeding?

We keep about 24 issues at a time for all periodicals and newspapers with the exception of our local town paper. We archive back issues of these.

10. Is there anything else not mentioned that you feel I should know?

In the last year and a half we have radically reduced our reference collection, so the methods and criteria did not apply to that project. In that case, we evaluated whether or not we had access to the information in our databases or on line. Some of the resources were relocated into our non-fiction collection, much of the specialized resources were offered to other institutions. (ex: a music encyclopedia collection went to our local high school’s music department; an art history reference collection went to Teti etc.)