Crash Course in Weeding Library Collections - by Francisca Goldsmith (Paperback)

About the Book

Weeding is a perennial challenge for librarians. This book will help you rise to the task by offering you basic instructions, including information on new formats and digital collections.
Weeding is often difficult--who can easily decide to discard books and other materials that someone may someday want to borrow? But weeding is essential to keeping your collection healthy and relevant. Perfect for all types of libraries and for both paraprofessionals and librarians unfamiliar with modern weeding methods, this practical guide offers clear guidance that can help you cope with the sometimes-paralytic fear and distaste that can accompany a must-do task.

Each of the book's chapters treats a specific concern--for example, weeding electronic collections. Practical matters related to collection maintenance through material and online resource weeding are addressed, as are policy and procedure documentation and communication planning and best practices. You'll read about weeding ethics, using vendor-provided weeding tools, and floating collections. The book also shares advice on training volunteers as weeding assistants and on communicating with library stakeholders about collection maintenance. By showing you how to make weeding a normal part of your library's routine, this book will help you provide your community with a healthier, better circulating, and more valuable collection.

• Covers online collection maintenance needs on all material formats (books, serials, recordings, realia) that require ongoing weeding
• Points to free online resources and places them in context
• Addresses weeding and physical emergencies, such as fires, earthquakes, and plumbing failures
• Discusses weeding in support of building wayfinding and boosting circulation
• Includes worksheets that provide documentation to use as guides in policy, procedure, and communication planning

Book Synopsis

Weeding is a perennial challenge for librarians. This book will help you rise to the task by offering you basic instructions, including information on new formats and digital collections.

Weeding is often difficult--who can easily decide to discard books and other materials that someone may someday want to borrow? But weeding is essential to keeping your collection healthy and relevant. Perfect for all types of libraries and for both paraprofessionals and librarians unfamiliar with modern weeding methods, this practical guide offers clear guidance that can help you cope with the sometimes-paralytic fear and distaste that can accompany a must-do task.

Each of the book's chapters treats a specific concern--for example, weeding electronic collections. Practical matters related to collection maintenance through material and online resource weeding are addressed, as are policy and procedure documentation and communication planning and best practices. You'll read about weeding ethics, using vendor-provided weeding tools, and floating collections. The book also shares advice on training volunteers as weeding assistants and on communicating with library stakeholders about collection maintenance. By showing you how to make weeding a normal part of your library's routine, this book will help you provide your community with a healthier, better circulating, and more valuable collection.

Review Quotes

"This book could be a useful tool for someone new to the library field who has an interest or a need to learn about the weeding process." --Technical Services Quarterly

"Drawing upon an extensive background as a public librarian, a leader of weeding projects in public and school libraries, a library educator and staff development consultant, and an author in the literature on both sides (public services and technical services) of the library house, Francisca Goldsmith gives us a clear, readable Crash Course in Weeding Library Resources. Her skillful blending of practical how-to and philosophical why-to makes the book more educational than a guidebook, yet more concrete than a collection development textbook. It will be useful for anyone involved in weeding, but most useful to those readers responsible for designing and leading weeding projects, those in public libraries, and those wishing for education as well as instruction." --Technicalities

About the Author