Weeding

Ok....I'm sorry I haven't posted in thing in months. There is no excuse.

In April and May, I was swamped with spending the money in my budget before it expired. I am very fortunate to have a large budget for library books. It can allow me to expand my collect each year but the problem was that I already had $40,000 worth of books in boxes from a grant that my campus received in January. Purchasing more books seemed a little absurd since I wasn't familiar with what was in the boxes (my aide placed the order for the grant money since there was no librarian at the time). So I sent e-mails to my teachers to see what they would like me to purchase.

I received about 5 requests for things like biographies and book units which I happily ordered. My problem was that there are 35 teachers on my campus so my return rate was not great. :( I was told my one of my 3rd grade teachers that I shouldn't take it personally because teachers have never had an input on what happened in the library. !!!!New goal for the year!!!!!!

So I took the liberty to update our guided reading collection.

While I had to gather reviews on books, place orders, and still have classes I also had to weed the monstrous collection that was presently on the shelves.

Hhhhhuuuuuffffffff.......this was a monumental task. I started with a report of books that were published 20 year prior (the result was 200 pages long). I started with the non-fiction section. I found books on space and computers that were older than I am. It didn't get any better in any of the categories.

After many weeks of pulling and pulling and pulling and stamping and deleting from the OPAC, I weeded about 500 books. At my campus, we place the weeded books in the teachers' lounge for teachers to add them to their classroom libraries. There were so many books being placed in the lounge that teachers started asking me if I was getting rid of all the books in their library.

After reassuring them that what I was doing was the best thing for the library I began weeding the picture books.......another 200......then the fiction section (chapter books).....another 250.

Finally, there was room on the shelves, books weren't falling apart, and they were organized using call numbers rather than reading levels. Haaaaaaaaaaa.

So, that was how I started in my first librarian position. Even through it was a lot of work, it really helped me get to know my collection better. It helped me to take ownership of the library rather than just go along with "the way it's always been".

There is still a lot of work to do, especially since we are moving into our new library between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but at least it should be an organized move and students will finally be able to find books they want.

Until next time......remember:

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.

The man who never reads lives only one.

--George R. R. Martin