Weeding the 100's

Hello,
This month we are going to weed in the 100’s which include Philosophy and Psychology. This is a very small section in my elementary school library. I am using the CREW guidelines for weeding your collection. The formulas for the different Dewey classes are ‘rules of thumb’. This means that you may have a book that might lend itself to be discarded, but it is still being used in your library. Go ahead and keep the book if you want. There are no library police coming to take it away. These are guidelines only. CREW uses an acronym ‘MUSTIE’ that can help decide whether or not to discard a book.

M – Misleading or factually incorrect
U – Ugly or worn and beyond mending or rebinding
S – Superseded by a new edition or a much better book on the subject
T – Trivial – no discernible literary or scientific merit. (Usually was of interest at some point in the past.)
I – Irrelevant to the needs and interests of your community
E – Elsewhere. The material or information may be obtained quickly and easily elsewhere.

101 – Philosophy
Weed based on interest and use.

133 – Paranormal Phenomena
Often these books are high interest and have high usage. Since this section contains books on witchcraft, fortune telling, dream interpretation, and astrology, we will likely not have much of anything in our libraries in this section. I happen to have a couple of books on the Loch Ness monster that we put in this section.

150 – Psychology
You may have some self-help books in this section. Consider weeding them if the copyright date is older than five years. Keep up with television gurus and weed their books when no longer popular or on TV.

160 – Ethics and Morality
Weed books that have a copyright older than ten years or if no longer of interest to your community. Watch for any outdated philosophies on ethics and moral values such as genetic engineering, euthanasia, and sexuality.


This information can be found in CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries. http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew . The Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Let me know if you have any wonderful tricks to get students to return books in a timely manner. I’ll compile your ideas and send them out in an email. I’ll use your name along with each idea I receive unless you prefer to remain anonymous.

Please let me know if you have any questions or ideas you would like to see addressed in my weekly emails. What things are helpful to you? Would you rather have more titles of books or more library management ideas?

Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com