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 Weeding involves removing outdated, unused, or worn-out items so that current, useful, and visually appealing materials are easily seen and accessed.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for a nonfiction collection to have information that is current and accurate; the community should not be provided with outdated or incorrect information.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• Outdated or inaccurate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 We can examine your collections and weed out the liquid-damaged, food/other stained, outdated, cracked, yellowed, and otherwise unappealing books.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.