This was the module I did not know I needed! I found myself nodding in agreement as I read through the material.

I have been struggling to know how to go about weeding our collection. Because I am newly in charge I have never had to weed before. The only thing I knew about how the previous librarian weeded was that she looked at the date stamps in the back of the book to see how long it had been since it was last borrowed. It seemed this happened only when she ran out of other things to do or too many books were stacked up on the shelves. That strategy is problematic as some books are never borrowed even though they are used every year. Classes come in and do the research in the library using those books without ever formally checking them out. Covid lockdowns have prevented the usual borrowing over the past two years so it may appear that a book has not been borrowed out for a few years when there was really no opportunity. There are also books that are lost and then returned to the library a year or more later so it could look like it was not borrowed, but they couldn’t have been!

Our library has shelves brimming over with books some older than me! I started with using the LMS to find books that had not been borrowed in over 10 years. I printed out a dozen pages of books that hadn’t been borrowed in that time! I have not yet gotten through all 12 pages but soon will be. I wasn’t sure what I would do after that  but now my next step will be to find the books that were acquired over 10 years ago. These I will filter using the F.R.E.S.H acronym from Library Girl.

These are my short term goals. What really needs to happen is a re-writing of our library’s Collection Development Policy. Our current policy is very vague about deselection and has no established timeline. I would also like to map our collection. This is also a new concept to me and one I think would be invaluable in helping me know our collection better and learn where the gaps are making our library much more useful to the school community.