Stocktaking and Weeding

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Stocktakingand Weeding

• Secret library business or essential collection
  development activities?
• Renate Beilharz

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Secret Library Business

• Library is closed for stocktaking
• No perceivable outcome to the average user
• Weeding is rarely done flamboyantly
• Weeded items are hidden from staff
• Lack of understanding of the purpose of these
  activities

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Collection Development Policy

• Purpose of the collection
• Type of material in the collection
• Selection criteria and processes
• Budgeting policy
• Weeding criteria
• Stocktaking processes
• Dealing with controversial material

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Purpose of a School Library Collection

• Reflect needs of the users
• Support and enrich the curriculum
• Encourage and develop a love of reading
• To be accessible to all users

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A school library collection needs to be

• Relevant
• Accessible
• Attractive
• Stocktaking and weeding are complementary
  activities necessary for achieving these goals

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Stocktaking objectives

• Ensure that the database reflects the actual
  collection
• Identify errors in cataloguing and processing
• Identify areas which have losses
• Identify areas of strength and weakness for
  ongoing collection development

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Other purposes of stocktake

• Each resource is handled at least once a year
• Perfect ordering resources
• Identify misplaced items
• Tidying the shelves
• Check links for electronic
• Resources
• Finds the books that havent been checked in
  correctly

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You want to do what???

• http//www.warriorlibrarian.com/HUMOUR/agony.html

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Stocktaking Positive PR

• Write a Collection Development Policy, including
  stocktaking
• Talk to the school community about the reasons
  for stocktaking
• Consider alternative ways to stocktake that do
  not involved closing completely
• Involve members of the school community in the
  process where practical

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Hints for stress free stocktaking

• Read the manual
• Check the equipment and clarify the physical
  processes
• Run a trial stocktake of a small collection
• Ensure that processes are clearly documented and
  understood by staff
• Decide which collections are to be stocktaken

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More hints

• Make a check list of collections and tasks
• Take the time to shelf read, this will help when
  dealing with anomalies
• Leave enough time to rectify anolmalies
• Be realistic in what you can get done in the time
  allocated you dont have to do all collections
  each year
• Enjoy the task, it can be rewarding

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After stocktaking

• Run all relevant reports and final procedures
• Make sure you change the status of missing items
• Create a written report for administration and
  staff
• Celebrate another job well done

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Weeding objectives

• To have a collection that is
• Current
• Relevant
• Attractive and presentable
• To give an accurate picture of the quality of the
  collection
• To make room for new resources
• It does not matter how many books you may have,
  but whether they are good or not. Lucius
  Annaceus Senecca

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Weed!

• Small, but high quality collections are
  infinitely better. And this is why. Continuous,
  thoughtful weeding
• Rids your collections of sexist, racist and just
  plain inaccurate materials.
• Makes the good stuff easier to find and more
  appealing.
• Sends the message that the library may not be
  adequately funded.
• http//www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/weed.html

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Weeding criteria - MUSTIE

• Misleading factually inaccurate
• Ugly worn beyond mending
• Superseded new edition or better information
• Trivial no literary or scientific merit
• Irrelevant to needs of school
• Elsewhere material easily borrowed or available
  from another source

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Weeding criteria - Quantative

• Borrowing statistics
• Usage over a period of time
• Date of publication
• Item older than a certain date

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Excuses not to weed

• A large collection looks good
• I hate throwing things away
• If I pulled everything off that should go, I
  wouldnt have a collection left
• My principal/teachers wont let me weed
• I havent the funds to replace discarded items

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Weed!

• Poorly weeded collections are not the sign of
  poor budgets but of poor librarianship. Period.
  Only two things can happen if library material
  replacement budgets are inadequate. The
  collection ages if the librarian does not weed.
  The collection gets smaller if the librarian does
  weed. Thats it.
• http//www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/weed.html

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Weed!

• Whether fortunate or unfortunate, many people
  regard books as sacred objects and have
  difficulty throwing them away. An industrial arts
  teacher at Evelyns school glares at me to this
  day, claiming he hurt his back climbing out of
  the dumpster into which I had thrown away some
  perfectly good books. What he did not
  understand and we need to remember is that it is
  not books that are sacred, but the thoughts,
  inspiration, and accurate information they
  contain.
• http//www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/weed.html

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Weeding positive PR

• Including weeding criteria in your Collection
  Development Policy
• Talk to the school community, keep good examples
  of weeded items to show
• Involve relevant staff, using their expertise in
  specialist areas
• Use the opportunity to identify and advertise
  under utilised resources, and promote newly
  purchased material

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Hassle free weeding

• Decide on clear, justifiable criteria
• Dont try to weed your whole collection at once
  do a little at a time
• Get the support of at least one other staff
  member
• Do it in secret under the cover of a dark moon,
  destroying all evidence as you go

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Helpful hints

• Discard old editions of texts immediately
• Be sure to weed AV material
• Check online content of sites to ensure relevance
  and currency
• If in doubt about a subject area, weed with
  teachers

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After weeding

• If unsure about some items, have someone else
  check them
• Remember to delete records from the catalogue
• Stamp the items DISCARDED or WEEDED
• Remove any circulation stationary
• Keep a record of number of discards

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Getting rid of an item

• Donate it
• Recycle it
• Sell it
• Discard it

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Fun with weeding

• If it isn't clean, it will be thrown away
• If it doesn't look good, it will be thrown away
• if it can't be managed, it will be thrown away
• If it is abused, it will be thrown away
• If it can't be identified, it will be thrown away
  
• If it has no use, it will be thrown away
• If it needs batteries, it will be thrown away
• If it needs bulbs, it will be thrown away
• If it needs a manual, it will be thrown away
• If it's operation isn't inherently obvious, it
  will be thrown away
• If it was a gift from a faculty member who hasn't
  been seen since, it will be thrown away
• if it was a gift from the principal, keep it.
• Lamb, Annette and Larry Johnson 2005, Collection
  maintenance and weeding http//eduscapes.com/sms/w
  eeding.html

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Future

• RFID tags
• Shelf reading, shelving,
• sorting, searching,
• weeding

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Resources

• Baumbach, Donna J. and Linda L.. Miller 2006,
  Less is more a practical guide to weeding school
  library collections, American Library
  Association, Chicago.
• Johnson, Doug 2003, Weed! http//www.doug.johnson.
  com/dougwri/weed.html
• Lamb, Annette and Larry Johnson 2005, Collection
  maintenance and weeding http//eduscapes.com/sms/w
  eeding.html
• Punshon, Marianne (ed.) 2006 Managing for
  learning issues for primary school libraries,
  SLAV, Carlton, Vic.
• The SLAV website www.slav.schools.net.au has
  links to many relevant sites related to this
  topc.