Weeding

Last week was, as you know, the last week before the new year. In library land, this means that it was also my last chance to do any weeding before my year-to-date circulation statistics reset themselves. Unfortunately, I still had to weed the entire picture book collection - one of the largest collections down here in the children's department.

Fortunately, thanks to my Uber Librarian Skills, I got it all done just in time. And look at all of the picture books I was able to discard!:


Non-librarians might be asking: What is weeding? Why is it important?

Well, weeding is when a librarian goes through the collection and removes any materials that the library no longer needs. Believe it or not, libraries cannot keep every single item they purchase forever, and eventually some items need to be let go.

A book, for example, might be weeded for a number of reasons. Maybe the book is damaged beyond repair. Maybe it hasn't been circulating. Or maybe it's just old and out of date. Whatever the reason, it's a good idea for libraries to discard items like this so that there is plenty of room on the shelves for new books to be added while still leaving enough empty space to make for easy browsing. Patrons are more likely to find what they need - and more likely to check out more books - if the shelves are neat, have some empty space, and are filled with clean/attractive books. Weeding helps librarians to create this kind of space.

Needless to say, my picture book collection is looking mighty attractive after all of that weeding.