I just posted this to LM_NET. I welcome blog comments as well. Eventually I plan to post the responses I get from LM_NET
I am generally a pretty fearless weeder. I have a plan in place right now – but watching the carts fill up with discarded books is making me a bit nervous – so I am looking for your thoughts.
The issue is more than simply weeding 10 year old+ books. It is the whole future of non-fiction books.
Our non-fiction, report style books are used less and less. With encouragement and teaching, the kids WILL use the databases. But, for the most part, I cannot get them to use the books. They will search for hours on Google before they will get up and walk over to a shelf. Our staff often requires them to use books, but here is what I see…. Just before the project is due, they show up asking for help to find a book. I know they are just putting it into their works cited list for “show”.
I still have LOTS of avid readers – just not of non-fiction (except biographies and true adventure type books).
What is your opinion? Are you buying less non-fiction these days? Here is the plan I shared with my staff when notifying them that there were discarded books available for their personal use if they wanted. Do you think I am way off-base here?
Dear Staff,You may notice that there are a large number of discarded library books (10 years old or more) in the staff room, free for the taking. Just so you know… I do have a long range plan. There will still be plenty of books for research – just newer and perhaps in a new format. The non-fiction section will slowly be replaced by ebooks, available to read from our database web page. The fiction section will get larger to serve our MANY avid readers. When e-readers stabilize a little more, I would like to add Kindles or iPads to loan both fiction and non-fiction ebooks. I know, I know. Money. Well … I can always dream.Eventually, I hope to remove 2 or 3 large shelving units to create more “kid space”. Somewhere for kids to relax on comfy chairs etc., while allowing more space around the work tables so kids aren’t quite so cramped when we have 2 or 3 classes in here.
Please jump in and discuss!
For anyone who might want to use it, here is the weeding form I update and use every year.