Weeding

We have tons of old books therefore, weeding is a must. It must be done on a consistent basis. The easiest way is by appearance. If the book looks ugly and worn, students will not want to check them out. We recently received new shelving so I had to remove all of the books from the shelves and place them on carts. I decided to take this opportunity to weed our collection. While I was moving books, I noticed that many of the books were filthy with dust. I feel that fiction is harder to weed than nonfiction because the copyright date doesn't really matter with fiction as it does with nonfiction. I began weeding with nonfiction. I used the RENEW model provided by our county Media Services department. I even assigned my students sections to weed. While I was weeding I found a book entitled, Landing the Job You Want. The information provided in this book could be easily found online by using our Career Database.

Last year I completed a big weeding job. I removed all of the reference books. The encyclopedias are all housed on our databases so there is no need to keep encyclopedias. After I got rid of all of the encyclopedias last year, I realized I should have kept them so I could make book Christmas tree. I was so mad at myself!

One of my students helped me to weed the audiovisual section. We have tons of VHS that no one checks out anymore. Our district recently adoped Safari Montage. Safari Montage is an online streaming system. Many of the Bill Nye series are on Safari Montag along with other education videos. We have packed them in boxes but now I have to delete them from the system and then black out anything with our school and county's name on it. Then, I will calll the county office and request a pallet. Next, after the pallet is loaded, they will send someone to remove the pallet. It seems so simple, right? It is but it time consuming and it so hard to find the time to do it. I am hoping to use the shelves in the Audio visual to store more Professional Learning books or simply remove the shelving and rethink the space as my mentor, Kyle Flemish has done.

Many teachers were upset this year and last year when I removed so many books. I sent a newsletter explaining the process and tried to reassure them that we would still have the adequate resources through our databases and ebooks. Many were reassured but some are just so old fashioned that nothing will change their mind. Weeding has allowed me to add more collaborative spaces for students. This has made the media center a more welcoming space for the students.