Weeding your school library collection — video
Weeding is the process of regularly removing outdated resources from your school library collection. It's sometimes called deselection or withdrawing items from your collection. Find out why it's important to weed your collection. Learn some helpful hints.
Transcript
A voiceover provides information while a series of short video clips, PowerPoint slides and images taken within a school library illustrate the importance of weeding and the process involved.
The video opens with a male and a female student struggling to find books on cluttered library shelves. At the end of the video, the 2 students are smiling as they successfully find the books they're looking for.
Introduction
[Music]
Voiceover: How do your students get on when they look for a resource in your library?
Can they find it easily or do they have to contend with crowded shelves and old unappealing resources? How can you make sure that your students find the best material for their reading and research?
[Student sighs after giving up trying to find a book.]
Welcome
Kia ora. Welcome to our video on weeding your school library. Weeding your resources is an essential part of keeping your library collection relevant, vibrant and accessible.
Some of us find it difficult to throw away library resources for all sorts of reasons: small budgets, resistance from other people, fear of making a wrong choice.
However, library resources have a shelf life, just like any other item. New discoveries are made, facts and attitudes change, trends come and go, and items that spread misinformation undermine the value of your students’ research.
At its best, your collection will engender a love of reading in your students and will provide access to the best quality information resources available.
Weeding is just one process in your collection management arsenal that you can use to support your school community in their quest for knowledge and great reading.
It’s a good idea to consider how much of the collection you want to weed in one go.
If you haven't done this recently, it might be good to weed the whole collection. This will give you a baseline to operate from in the future.
Or, especially if you are in a large school, you could make a plan to take one major section at a time so that over one to two years you’ve covered your whole collection. If you have been weeding regularly or if a major weed has been done in the last two to three years, then you could select a specific section to work on.
Document your approach
[PowerPoint slide: Document your approach
Use your school library handbook to record:
your process and progress
which sections you have weeded
the number of resources you have weeded.]
Voiceover: For future reference, it’s a good idea to document your approach in your school library handbook.
Your library management system can be used to find out how often an item has been issued and to generate a print-out for items that haven’t been borrowed in the last 3 to 5 years to create a shortlist of potential discards.
Consider who to involve
You’ll want to consider who to involve in the process.
We recommend involving the teaching staff when weeding the library. Having a small team to consult with means better transparency and understanding of the rationale and the processes involved with weeding.
At secondary level, you will need to consult with subject specialists.
Involving the staff gives them the opportunity to explore what is in the library and to discover any gaps that might need filling.
Make sure that everyone understands and is clear about your weeding criteria before starting.
Have some post-its and pens handy as weeding often turns up a number of issues with resources in the collection. You will most likely end up with a number of piles of resources:
resources that you would like to promote to your students
specific resources that you would like to replace
topics to be replaced
items for mending
items for transferring to teacher resources
items that need to be reclassified so that they can be more easily found
and items for weeding.
Weeding your school library: Criteria for assessing resources
So, how are you going to decide which resources you are going to weed?
The first thing to consider when you assess an individual item is its visual appeal and physical condition.
Appearance makes a huge difference to whether your students want to use an item or not.
If the production and images are outdated, it probably won’t appeal to your students. Students are unlikely to want to borrow an item that is damaged. If an item is damaged, it’s best to weed it and get a replacement if it is a popular title or topic.
Most school libraries don’t have the space to keep irrelevant and unnecessary stock.
The best way to know if a resource is no longer relevant to your collection either for reading or research is to talk to your students and teachers and find out more about their interests.
Collaboration and communication are essential for a successful school library.
Weeding the collection is another opportunity to create and strengthen relationships with other members of your educational community.
Another thing to consider when weeding an item is its suitability for your students as most of us don’t have time to look at every item that comes into our collection. Sometimes resources are added that turn out to be inappropriate in terms of their reading level or subject matter.
If an item is too difficult for your most competent students or is on a topic that is inappropriate for the age level of your students, then it’s best to take it out of your collection.
When you are weeding your collection, you will also need to consider the currency of the information and the attitudes presented in an item. It is important to remove resources that contain outdated or inaccurate information or have attitudes that might now be considered offensive and hurtful.
While it might not matter so much whether Pluto is considered a plant or a dwarf planet, it does matter if you have books on the weather and environmental issues that don’t address climate change.
When you are deciding to weed non-fiction titles, the publication date that you use to guide your weeding practice will vary according to the area of knowledge. For example, science and technical topics date more quickly than the arts and poetry.
Other criteria to consider when looking at non-fiction titles include how the material is presented and whether there is good access to the information in the book.
Is there a contents page?
Is there an index?
Does the book contain a glossary, bibliography and references to other resources?
In junior non-fiction, are the keywords highlighted?
Is the flow of information and diagrams easy and logical to follow?
Still unsure?
[PowerPoint slide: Still unsure?
Check the item’s issue statistics. If it hasn’t been borrowed in the last 3–5 years:
promote it
ask teachers if it is a current topic or if it will be taught again.]
Voiceover: Still unsure? Check the item’s issue statistics. If it hasn’t been borrowed recently you can either promote to your students if you think they may be interested or ask your teachers if it supports a topic that’s going to be taught again soon.
If you think it isn’t suitable for promotion, one last thing to check is whether it has special relevance to your community or if it has New Zealand content that might not be available or in print anywhere else. New Zealand, Māori and Pasifika material is often published in small print runs and may be difficult to replace.
If it’s beyond the reading level of your students, relocate it in the teacher resource collection.
If an item no longer meets any of the criteria we have talked about then it’s time to weed it.
Winding up the process and disposal of resources
[PowerPoint slide: Winding up your weeding process
Amend each item’s record on your library management system but don’t delete the catalogue record unless it’s the last copy.
If the item is going to be replaced, keep the catalogue record and add a new barcode number when the replacement arrives.
Stamp all weeded books with a withdrawn stamp.
Document your disposal policy.]
Voiceover: To finish off the process of weeding resources from your school library, here are a few of the steps you need to take.
When disposing of your weeded books, consider carefully whether the weeded item really has any further life or whether it’s time to take it permanently out of circulation. Although there are many good intentions around sending weeded books on to other organisations or countries, often these items are not appropriate.
Once you have weeded your collection, make sure that you keep the process ticking along.
Keeping your collection fresh and relevant will ensure that your students and teachers easily find great reads and great information.
Happy weeding!
Video thanks
The students, librarians and teachers at:
St Pius X School
Elm Park School
Pakuranga College.
This transcription
If you find any errors with this transcription, email digital-services@dia.govt.nz.