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Collection Weeding Manual

This document provides guidelines for weeding a library collection to improve its usefulness. It discusses the purposes of weeding such as increasing use, accuracy, and appeal while reducing costs. General principles outlined include focusing on why items should be kept rather than discarded, and applying regular selection criteria to assess if purchases would still be made. Objective criteria for weeding include circulation frequency and age. Sample weeding criteria are provided with thresholds for years since publication or last circulation, condition, accuracy, and obsolescence for different subject areas.

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Sheila Dawson Lence
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157 views

Collection Weeding Manual

This document provides guidelines for weeding a library collection to improve its usefulness. It discusses the purposes of weeding such as increasing use, accuracy, and appeal while reducing costs. General principles outlined include focusing on why items should be kept rather than discarded, and applying regular selection criteria to assess if purchases would still be made. Objective criteria for weeding include circulation frequency and age. Sample weeding criteria are provided with thresholds for years since publication or last circulation, condition, accuracy, and obsolescence for different subject areas.

Uploaded by

Sheila Dawson Lence
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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WESTCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY

COLLECTION WEEDING MANUAL


WEEDING - An analogy - Noxious weeds can choke your garden of resources. Pull out the
weeds so that the beauty of your garden can be seen and the use of your collection will be
guaranteed to increase.
"Books are for use."
- Ranganathan's First Law of Library Science.
PURPOSES AND BENEFITS OF WEEDING
Your ultimate goal should be to increase the use of your library's collection. You should work
toward your goal by striving to meet the following objectives.
1. Improve the accuracy, reliability and currency of the collection.
2. Improve the attractiveness and appeal of the collection.
3. Reduce searching time.
4. Reduce housing costs.
5. Provide feedback for continued development of the collection.
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The task of developing a library collection is not limited to the function of only adding new
materials to the collection for it is not your role to acquire and store a comprehensive
collection of the wisdom and folly of all ages. Collection development is the ongoing process
of improving the use and potential usefulness of your collection within the limits of your
financial resources. The ultimate usefulness of your collection is dependent upon your ability
to strike a balance between the quantity and quality of your material resources, and your
ability to retrieve pertinent items and information from your collection for use by your
patrons.
It is often much more practical to think about why an item should be kept in the collection
than it is to determine why it should be discarded. Establish sound reasons for retaining
items in your collection and weed the others ruthlessly.
Another practical method would be to apply your regular selection criteria to items on the
shelves. Ask yourself, "If the library didn't have the item on hand, would it be a worthwhile
purchase?"

You may often find that the item you've just discarded will answer the next reference
question. Don't let such a possibility freeze you into inaction and prevent you from weeding.
Sometimes it is much more preferable to admit that you lack an item or coverage in a
subject area than it is to give a patron an item that is factually inaccurate or woefully
obsolete.
Sometimes the person that selected an item finds it very difficult to discard that item if it
hasn't circulated. Be careful that you are not keeping items on the shelf in an attempt to
justify the original selection decision.
Numerous studies have been conducted on the subject of weeding. Most of the newer
methods that have been developed acknowledge that weeding should be both a subjective
and objective process.
On the subjective side, you must make some subjective decisions about what you think
"should" be in your library's collection. For instance, should a medium sized public library
have the complete works of Mark Twain...should it have a complete collection of the New
England Journal of Medicine? Subjective decisions should be used to define your core
collection and provide materials that you think your patrons will need.
On the objective side of the problem, you can employ objective criteria to identify the
materials that your patrons want through a study of what they have borrowed in the past.
Studies by Stanley J. Slote and others have concluded that among circulating materials 98%
of all of the materials used by patrons in libraries were circulated within the past 3 years.
99% were used within the last 4 years. A total of only 15% to 25% of all of your materials are
likely to be used again.
The ideal focus of an objective study would be on determining how long an item sits on
the shelf without being used and how long an item is being kept by a patron when it
circulates. Computerized circulation control can provide us with this data for weeding
purposes.
What follows is a modified objective method of weeding with some sample objective
criteria....
THE PROCESS
1. Familiarize yourself with the library's goals, objectives, avowed roles, selection policies,
selection criteria, subject strengths and special collections.
2. Assemble bibliographies and reading lists of core works in major subject areas and
authors of lasting popularity or value for use in the process.
3. Establish your general weeding criteria for all areas of your collection according to the age
of items, circulation frequency, content and condition.

4. Review each item on the shelf according to weeding criteria and other selection tools,
separating items recommended for withdrawal. A marker can be used to draw a line across
the top of retained volumes to indicate they have been reviewed. Materials of permanent
value can be marked in red.
6. Complete evaluation form for deselected items, place in volume and load cart.
7. Identify and maintain records of underdeveloped subject areas or areas of extreme
popularity as the review process proceeds.
8. Proceed with recommended disposition.
9. Periodically repeat the process with special attention to those items that may have been
in circulation during the previous review.

WESTCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY


GENERAL WEEDING CRITERIA
EXAMPLE - 10 / 5 / M U S T Y
10 - years since publication date
5 - years since last circulation date
M - Misleading or factually inaccurate
U - Ugly and worn beyond mending or rebinding
S - Superseded by a new edition or better title
T - Trivial and of no permanent merit
Y - Yank it as useless
___ = Priority Criteria
******************************************************************
000 GENERAL
020 Library Science

10/5/MUSTY

030 Encyclopedias

5/X/MUSTY

Other 000's

10/X/MUSTY

100 PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY


150 Psychology

10/5/MUSTY

Philosophy and Others

20/5/MUSTY

200 RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY

20/5/MUSTY

300 SOCIAL SCIENCES


310 Almanacs, Yearbooks

3/X/MUSTY

310 Political Science


Topical

5/5/MUSTY

Historical

15/5/MUSTY

340 Law

10/X/MUSTY

350 Government

15/X/MUSTY

370 Education

10/5/MUSTY

390 Etiquette, Customs


Etiquette

10/5/MUSTY

Folklore, Customs

15/5/MUSTY

400 LINQUISTICS AND LANGUAGE 10/5/MUSTY


500 PURE SCIENCE
510 Mathematics

15/5/MUSTY

570 Biology and Natural History

15/5/MUSTY

580 Botany

15/5/MUSTY

Other 500's

10/5/MUSTY

600 APPLIED SCIENCE


610 Medicine

5/5/MUSTY

630 Agriculture

10/5/MUSTY

640 Home Economics

5/5/MUSTY

690 Manufacturing

10/5/MUSTY

Other 600's

5/5/MUSTY

700 ARTS AND RECREATIONS


745 Crafts

15/5/MUSTY

770 Photography

10/5/MUSTY

Other 700's
800 LITERATURE

15/X/MUSTY
X/X/MUSTY

900 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY


910 Travel and Geography

Guidebooks

5/5/MUSTY

Narratives

15/5/MUSTY

920 Biography

X/X/MUSTY

Other 900's
FIC FICTION

15/5/MUSTY
X/5/MUSTY

JUV JUVENILE - Use Adult Criteria


VF VERTICAL FILE
COLLEGE CATALOGS

5/5/MUSTY
2/X/MUSTY

PERIODICALS AND NEWSPAPERS - Schedule retention list


LOCAL HISTORY - Keep all

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