I’d never thought of collections as a kind of living/breathing element. I really liked the garden metaphor used in “weeding” a collection and it got me thinking about the collection as a whole organism. Before the start of this course, the resources in the library to me were just…..resources in the library. I knew the TL ordered resources as requested by teachers and if it fit within the budget. I had no idea of how resources were managed beyond this. I guess I just thought they turned up magically and were then handled over magically (really just a scan when they were borrowed…) I’m a little embarrassed to admit I did not think beyond this!
Scrappy Annie. (2014) A corner of my back garden. [Photograph]. Flicker. https://www.flickr.com/photos/14903992@N08/14574464013
Johnson’s (2018) usage of words such as “growth, preservation and conservation, storage” (p. 241) also kind of fit into the garden metaphor as well.
Last year, the TL came and said she had some history books she would like to weed and invited me to take a look just in case we still used/needed them. Of course, I was horrified at the stack. Surely we could use these…….sometime? There were a few I could let go, and then there were a few that I couldn’t. They are sitting on the bottom shelf in my classroom at school. I’m never going to use or reference them. Just couldn’t bear the thought of throwing them out. I’m going to need some helping weeding in the library for sure!
Reference
Johnson, P. (2018). Fundamentals of collection development and management. American Library Association.