11 Jan 2012 6 Comments
Library Rant: Why libraries click the delete button on books
We all enjoy the fabulous book sales libraries have from time to time, right? I thought so. I love those awesome sales myself. Most of the books on our for sale racks come from donations that we are unable to use, but a portion come from weeding our collection. So how do we decide what stays and what goes? We try to follow the basic weeding guidelines. Weeding is a weird term – kinda makes me think of gardening – LOL. Anyhoo, here are the guidelines we use:
1. Last date of circulation – If it isn’t moving, we don’t need it collecting dust.
2. Physical condition – Who wants to check out a filthy looking book with no-telling-what smeared on the pages? Yuck!
3. Out-of-Date – Nobody wants to get financial advice from a 10-year-old finance book, right?
4. Duplicates – In some cases we overlook duplicates (ex-Twilight Series, Harry Potter) but usually, when the craze ends, the extras go away.
Like I said, we keep it super simple. My library is very small and our collection is roughly around 30,000 items, give or take, so we have to weed regularly to make room for all of the exciting new titles coming our way.With three regular employees, keeping the shelves top-notch takes up most of our time. Today we came across a book that hasn’t circulated in 3 years and had been chewed to hell and back. I was livid, to say the least. If it hasn’t been checked out, how the hell did it get damaged? It’s not like we have a book-hating dog roaming the isles looking for a steamy romance to chew on, unless I missed the memo. LOL So, of course, we deleted said book and moved on. But it still ticks me off that we have people taking books off the shelf, stuffing them in their bags, and taking off like bandits with our books.
Gosh! I think my blood pressure is spiking. I’ve managed to catch a kid working so very hard at peeling our stickers off of a book before, too. Only to have him come back a few days later and try to walk out the door with a mythology book, for reasons that escape me. Could it have been the illustrations of bare-breasted women that attracted him? Who knows. I’m just curious as to what drives people to take what libraries offer for free. I mean, getting a library card is simple and FREE, for goodness sake. I must scare the hell out of people or something, sitting at my desk in the back and staring out at the front desk. HA HA
What do you guys think? Am I crazy or is the library world just that darn exciting?
