Weeding Procedures

Shelflists and Pull Lists

A shelflist is an online table or printout of all volumes in a call number range listed in exact call number, author, title order. It can include other data such as publication year, circulations, status, etc. I usually use a data dump from my online catalog reporting system into Excel to generate my shelflists. There are also usually ready-made reports that suffice, but I find them inevitably missing something I want to know or aren't formatted in a way I find easy to use.

Below is an example of a shelflist section created using a Follett Destiny Title / Copy Data report dumped into Excel. A lot of extraneous data has been filtered out and columns moved from the original pull, but I have not limited any titles yet. This is the type of shelflist I use when I weed.

Pull Lists

A pull list is simply a shelflist limited by certain factors such as publication year, date purchased, date last circulated, and / or total circulations.

Deciding on a criteria for Pull Lists

Use CREW aged Dewey recommendations. I advise that you consider both total number of circulations and last date circulated. A book may have a high number of circulations, but if it hasn't moved in five years may be a very good candidate for weeding (old Massachusetts School Library Award candidates often fall in this category). On the other hand, a book may only circulate once a year (or every 2-3 years if you have a looping curriculum) because it is generally only used for a specific study unit. You need to be aware of these types of factors that may influence circulation in certain genres or Dewey ranges.

Remember that generating pull lists due to empirical factors such as publication date and / or circulations is fine, but that some books will fall outside your criteria and still be good candidates for weeding due to poor content or condition. Make it clear to any helpers that the books they are pulling are only CANDIDATES for weeding and that you will be looking them over carefully before making a final decision. Some very ugly and public scandals have hit the news either because librarians did not consider anything beyond age / circulation criteria or did not communicate well that there are further consideration beyond those factors.

The example of a pull list below was generated from the same shelflist above. It is limited to anything that hasn't circulated since 6/30/2020.

DON'T FORGET TO DELETE THE BARCODE FROM YOUR ONLINE CATALOG BEFORE YOU GET RID OF THE BOOK!!!

Marking Out

Do you need to mark out or cross off labels on books you are weeding?

Definitely if you are going to give them to teachers or students in your school. Otherwise they will just end up back in your library at some point and you will waste precious time trying to figure out if this is an old weed or something that was stolen, lost, improperly checked out, never cataloged, or who knows what. You'll just have to weed it all over again.

Probably not if you are throwing them into the garbage / recycling or sending them to a donation service, but at least crossing off the barcode makes it clear that it's not in the database anymore and so can help you keep track of where in the process you are will it.

PRO TIP : Kids love being given permission to write on / in books. Enlist some little librarians to cross off barcodes, spine tags and ownership labels.

DISPOSAL

WORTHY WEEDS - worthy weeds are books that are still up-to-date, in pretty good condition, and might be of interest or use to somebody in your community.

other libraries in your district
teachers in your school
"free books" to your students
used book sale (Check with your district first, many do not allow resale of old school assets.)
artists

Donations Services

More than Words is a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers youth who are in the foster care system, court involved, homeless, or out of school to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business Cambridge Public School Librarians LOVE these people. One of the few companies that will pick up and take almost anything (except encyclopedia sets). They would appreciate a donation. It is worth it.

Can we talk garbage?

Let me be perfectly blunt here. If it's dated non-fiction, yucky paperbacks, old encyclopedia sets, pre-21st century contemporary fiction, obsolete AV materials, offensive anything, it is garbage. That's all it is. THROW IT OUT. (And when I say throw it out I mean recycle it if you can. But, often you can't.) Nobody wants it, including most book donation companies or owners of those drop boxes you see at the nearby shopping mall. Book donation companies don't want library weeds because, unlike civilians, we don't usually toss good stuff that can be resold. We know better. Do not abuse the few companies that will pick up at libraries by giving them your trash.

Here's my thinking about letting a donation company throw out your garbage: is it really worth the fossil fuel costs to ship those rotted $2.00 Scholastic paperbacks across the state in a donation servicer's truck just so they can then put them in another big truck to ship off to a recycler? Wouldn't it be better to just cut out the middleman? Or, look at it this way if you want, how often has YOUR precious time been wasted by someone's "generous donation" of dirty, ugly, rotted, dated, awful books that they just couldn't make themselves bin? I know you know what I mean and from whom.

And don't get me started about shipping books to foreign lands because that's a fossil fuel waster too. More importantly, do kids in poor countries really need more rich people's garbage? If you really care about what other kids in the world are reading, then raise some money, buy good books by their local authors from their local publishers telling their local stories and support their whole community. Here's a great place to indulge that generous impulse : Libraries without Borders.

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