Weeding in the 000s

Hello, Teachers,

I’ve been sending you to your libraries to weed and weed some more. I have another short place to weed. The 000s include encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs, and dictionaries plus more, but I’ll keep to the four mentioned.

Encyclopedias: My paper indicates that encyclopedias over 5 years old are outdated. I hesitate to toss them if they are less than 10 years old AND used regularly. However, if your print encyclopedias are seldom used, toss them and use the Britannica Online that is free for our SDA schools through the NAD.

Atlases: Make sure that your atlases are up-to-date and attractive to children. Do you have a good world atlas? What about an atlas of the United States or even a road atlas? There are some really fun and pretty picture atlases you might look at, too.

Almanacs: These also fit in the 5-year range, but I admit that we have some that are quite old that the children still like to look through. You are welcome to follow our lead and keep the items that are actually being used regularly. Usually, discarding the older ones and replacing with newer ones is the better plan.

Dictionaries: In a smaller school, it is likely that the classrooms have classroom sets of dictionaries for the students therefore the library may only need one or two. I would suggest he library get a good unabridged dictionary, and one or two college level dictionaries. I really like the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. If you want more, consider adding a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary.

The main word to consider in this section is “outdated”. If your section is outdated, then you really need to update soon.

I hope you have a great week.

Audrey

Weeding in the 900s

Hello,

If you weeded out all your “Pluto is the 9th planet” books and find that your 520 section is low, now you know where to put some of your vast library budgets!

Today let’s go to the geography and history section – the 900s. My source says to ‘rotate the purchase of books on countries and states so that no title is older than 5 years.' I sat here thinking that IF I did that, I’d be spending loads of money on books that are only used every other year. The books would be used a very few times before needing to be replaced. That seems wasteful to me.

This is probably not recommended so don’t turn me in to the library police, but I think if you have a book on each state and each country for main information that seldom changes, students can look for updated changes in information on the internet. I think you should check your state and country books to make sure they have nice updated color photos and published within the last 10 – 15 years. Older than that, make sure that the information is good enough and begin replacing them as you can. I say this to you, but I am realizing that I have no idea how old our state and country books are! I’m probably going to be embarrassed.

History books would seem to be relevant forever due to the fact that they are indeed ‘history’ which does not change, right?! My source says to ‘consider demand and accuracy of facts when reviewing histories.’

Watch for books that fit the ‘MUSTIE’ acronym. This stands for Misleading, Ugly, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, (can be found) Elsewhere. ‘Ugly’ also includes missing pages, dirty, and in bad shape. Replace books that are being used regularly but fit this acronym.

Please remember that if a book is important to your school or library, keep it. These are guidelines, not etched in concrete.

I’m now heading to my 900 section to take a look.

Have a great week,
Audrey

Weeding in the 520s

Hello, All,

It may be that I am not paying attention, but I got some information this week from the American Library Association about weeding the library. I am really interested in this, because it is hard to know what to weed and what to keep sometimes. One person has simplified the * CREW method for school libraries down to one page. I downloaded it and printed it out. In the Astronomy section she mentioned weeding out all Astronomy books that mention Pluto as a planet. This morning I did just that. I went through the Astronomy books (520s) and pulled each one off the shelf. I checked the published date. If it was earlier than 2004, I put it to be discarded. If it was after 2004, I checked the index and looked at the Pluto pages to see how they were treating Pluto. Some said that Pluto was being considered to not be a planet, but they still included Pluto in the planet list. Tossed. Some said that Pluto was no longer a planet, but a dwarf planet instead. Keep.

If you haven’t done this yet, please do so very soon. If you have already weeded out incorrect Pluto information, why didn’t you tell me to do it too!?

Poor Pluto!

Have a great weekend.

Audrey

• The CREW method is a complete weeding manual for public libraries. I’ve used it to help weed in my library and also when giving advice to you in the past. It is free and you can download it online. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ld/pubs/crew/index.html

Magazines in the library

Hello,

I got an email last week wondering how we manage our magazines for check out. This is a great question. We put a barcode on the magazine on the bound edge as shown below. You may also notice that we write the issue date on the barcode. This helps us and students quickly locate the issue they need.

We process magazines as magazines in the computer. There is a place on our Alexandria program for magazine subscriptions. If your library is automated, you likely have something similar. I am the one who inputs the information into the computer. There is a place in the subscription page to list tags. I look through magazines quickly and type information that will help us find the magazine quickly. For example, I look through a Ranger Rick magazine. I see an article about pandas, so I type “panda” “pandas” or even the specific kind of panda “Red panda”. I see an article about insects so I type “insect” and the names of the insects that are in bold font or have photos. I might get a Cobblestone magazine about presidents with short stories about 10 presidents. I list “presidents” and the names of the presidents. I don’t do this for ALL magazines. For the car, bike, sports, etc. I don’t put any tags. I only tag the magazines that have information used for curriculum. This way if a student needs an article or information on pandas, the computer will direct them to the magazines that have the information they want.

We keep most magazines for 3 – 5 years. A couple of the titles I receive (Cobblestone and Faces) are kept always like we keep books. Nearly all of the rest we discard as they lose pages or are getting old. You need to decide what magazines are important to your school. If the Radio Control magazine is a vitally important one, then keep it as long as it is useful to you.

We keep the newest issues on a magazine slanted shelf and the older issues in labeled magazine cartons on shelves in the stacks. Students check magazines out and we provide a plastic envelope to put them in to keep them clean and cared for in backpacks. I splurged a few years ago and bought some with our school logo printed on them so parents wouldn’t be as likely to toss the magazine in the trash.

I hope you have a great end of the week and a good weekend. I have family coming in and am going to enjoy visiting for a couple of days.

Audrey