Weeding is a crucial part of any collection maintenance program. Weeding involves removing outdated, unused, or worn-out items so that current, useful, and visually appealing materials are easily seen and accessed. It is especially important for a nonfiction collection to have information that is current and accurate; the community should not be provided with outdated or incorrect information.
Reasons to discard material include:
- Lack of use
- Poor physical condition
- Changes in collection goals/priorities
- Racist or discriminatory content
- Duplicated or obsolete content
- Poorly written, unappealing
- Outdated or inaccurate
- Inappropriate reading level for the collection
We can help with that. We can examine your collections and weed out the liquid-damaged, food/other stained, outdated, cracked, yellowed, and otherwise unappealing books.
In order to maintain tidy and attractive collection shelves that are easy for patrons to navigate, Parkland recommends member libraries develop a weeding schedule and select one to two collections (ie., Adult Fiction, Easies, etc) per month to weed. Weeding in smaller increments also is more manageable for staff and presents less of a shock to patrons than doing one BIG weed every few years.
A great tool for this process is the Dusty Books Report in Polaris Reports, which enables you to set your own age and check-out parameters. Please note: This report defaults to items that are at least 5 years old and haven’t been checked out in 3 years.
Access the Dusty Books Report here: http://alap-polar01.prl.local/Reports/browse/Polaris. Log in to Polaris Reports using your library’s advanced Polaris login and then click Collection -> Dusty Books Report and select your member library code, item age in years and how many years for last circ parameters, select “Available” as your item status, and check the collection code(s) of the collections you wish to weed that month.
| Weeding Schedule –SampleMonth | Collection(s) for Weeding |
| January | Adult Movies, Board Books |
| February | Early |
| March | Adult Fiction |
| April | Adult Non-fiction |
| May | Junior Fiction, Junior Non-fiction |
| June | Junior Movies |
| July | Beginner Readers, Early Chapter Books |
| August | Audiobooks |
| September | Junior Graphic Novels |
| October | Large Print |
| November | Adult & Young Adult Graphic Novels |
| December | Young Adult Fiction & Non-Fiction |
For more information about weeding your collections or to schedule weeding assistance, please contact your Parkland Consultant or refer to the Collections Management Handbook in the Q Drive Collections folder.