Avoid A “Mustie” Library

Here are tips to help you determine if a book should go.

Misleading

Factually inaccurate or out of date

Ugly

Worn out beyond mending or rebinding

Superseded

A new edition or better source available

Trivial

No discernible literary or scientific merit

Irrelevant

No longer pertinent to the needs and interests of your school or students

Elsewhere

Easily borrowed or researched from another source

Why It’s So Hard

By nature librarians love books, and there is often an unwritten rule that books are sacred. It’s hard to convince anyone that the discarding of a book is necessary. It’s also difficult to find the time, energy, and resources to go through the shelves, book by book, to decide what to keep and what to weed. Remember, good weeding makes a library more useful and user-friendly. It is a natural part of a healthy library.

Keeping your library fresh
exciting and useful for
your students.

“An unused book is not a good (book). The Library should be a practical thing to be used, not an ideal to be admired.”
Charles Cutter, ALA founding member and notable librarian. 1901

What Is Weeding?

Weeding is the periodic and continual evaluation of your library’s resources with the goal of removing obsolete, damaged, and rarely used books. Weeding ensures that your library’s materials are useful, attractive, and accessible to your patrons. Every library’s print collection is limited by the space available, and collections must change over time to reflect changes in the community and in the library’s goals.

Set A Policy

A weeding policy provides a point of reference for staff to consult when deciding to acquire, discard, or reject an item. The guidelines in your policy allow you to make more consistent and informed decisions. They provide continuity during times of staff turnover or funding changes. In addition, your policy serves as a source of reinforcement if discarding (or adding) an item is challenged by a patron.

Examples Of Policy Criteria

• Content: Is the content of the book relevant to your collection goals?
• Copyright: Is the content outdated?
• Condition: Is the book extremely worn?
• Circulation history: Is the book being checked out?
• Currency: Is there newer information available?

Survey Your Collection

Inspect Materials as They Are Returned

The easiest form of weeding is to review materials as they are checked in or checked out. Look for worn edges, broken spines, torn pages, etc. Obviously dated materials can also be removed at this time or set aside for later review.

Schedule a Collection Review

To truly assess your entire collection, a rotation review schedule should be put into place. Plan to audit your entire collection over the course of a year. Begin in areas that are frequently changing, such as the natural sciences, applied sciences, and pop culture.

Use an Automated Comparison

If your library is automated, Perma-Bound can help you review your collection. Use our FREE Collection Analysis Planning Service (CAP) system. Upload your library's MARC records at perma-bound.com, and within twenty-four hours you will have access to reports that analyze and organize your collection by Dewey number, copyright date, and more. Review our reports against your criteria to weed obsolete items. For more information go to Analysis

Consider Exceptions

Books that you may want to keep:

• Classic titles
• Titles on local history or by local authors
• School publications (like year books)
• Titles on current reading lists
• Out-of-print titles that are still useful and irreplaceable.
• Biographical titles

Discard

Before Beginning, Check Your Library’s Approved Disposal Policy.

Sell:

A sale takes time to organize, but can help bring in funds to purchase new books and materials.

Donate:

Gift your unwanted, duplicate, or irrelevant titles to charity. Do not donate damaged or severely worn pieces.

Destroy:

Articles too damaged to sell or donate should be destroyed. Be discreet when discarding obsolete titles as many people have strong feelings about discarding books. Clearly mark all discards.

For a printable PDF, click here