[CASL-L] Weeding non-fiction books

[Carol Ansel]

Kristen, your question about weeding and ultimate size of collection is
one that I have been struggling with myself. I've been doing a very
serious weeding of the collection I inherited when I started here 3.5
years ago. We're talking hundreds of books a year in a collection that was
probably 7-8 thousand to start. We reconfigured into a learning commons
model this past summer,  which included the removal of about 150 linear
feet of shelving. (Wow, once I add it all up I'm thinking, sheesh, no
wonder the shelves feel so crowded!)

While I'm not aware of any standards or actual books-per-student
recommendations, even if they did exist I suspect they would need to be
updated to reflect the increasing inclusion of non-print materials in our
collections. (Funny thing, though - did anyone's budget ever increase to
cover the cost of the new formats? I suspect not, thus they came out of
"book budgets.")  Ultimately we want adequate resources (print and
non-print) to meet our students' and teachers' needs - but how to measure
that subjectively is quite tricky.

Here's the other "aha!" that occurred to me in this process: Once we
reduce our shelf space and change our configurations, we put ourselves in
a steady state situation in terms of number of books. In other words, it
becomes a case of "buy one, weed one." I no  longer have the space to
display books cover out, my shelves are way beyond the recommended 2/3 to
3/4 full, and shelving sometimes becomes an annoying game of Shift the
Books. 

I guess I have more questions than answers, and I'd love to hear other
people's experiences.

Carol

Carol M. Ansel
Librarian
The Williams School
182 Mohegan Avenue
New London, CT 06320-4110

860.439.2784

[Image:82616_81622_0.png]
      [ http://www.williamsschool.org ]www.williamsschool.org

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